Ronald Brooks, treasurer for the city of Hyattsville for the past 13 years, has resigned in the wake of a recent audit showing that the city’s financial cushion to cover day-to-day expenses was far lower than recent budgets have shown.
The audit prompted a City Council member to call for changes in city leadership, and a former council member called for both Brooks and the city administrator, Tracey Douglas, to be fired.
Douglas said in a statement posted to the city’s social media pages on Wednesday that she had accepted Brooks’ resignation. The responsibilities of treasurer will be shared by the city’s deputy budget director and deputy finance manager while the city searches for a permanent replacement, she said.
The city will also look to hire a certified public accountant on an interim basis, Douglas added.
“This arrangement will provide continuity in the City’s financial operations while also adding professional capacity during the transition,” she said in her statement.
Mayor Robert Croslin did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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In a letter to the community posted to the city’s website Monday, Croslin called for people to “resist the temptation to speculate or assign conclusions before the facts have been fully examined.
“Our responsibility is to understand the audit, address it, and work with staff to make any necessary corrections to ensure the public can have confidence in the system,” he wrote.
The audit, which the city posted to its website last Thursday, showed that the balance of the city’s general fund — the primary account for covering operations and services — had dropped 71%, from $24.5 million to less than $7 million, from fiscal year 2023 to 2024.
Douglas said in a previous interview that she understood the public’s frustration over the audit’s findings, but she pushed back on claims that officials had lied about the city’s financial standing.
She attributed the audit’s findings to differences in approach between the city’s former auditor and its current one — public accounting firm Zelenkofske Axelrod.
“So no missing funds, no misappropriation, none of that,” Douglas said previously. “It’s just a matter of interfund transfers, because this is the way this auditor does business.”
Council members, city staff and the auditors are expected to address the audit during the council’s next scheduled meeting on Sept. 14 at 7 p.m.
Like nearly all City Council meetings held since 2020, it will be conducted over Zoom.
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