pWATERTOWN — A newly released audit indicates the Fort Drum Regional Liaison Organization has about 13 months of operating assets./pp“It’s grant-driven,” said Thomas E. Bowie, partner with the accounting firm Bowers and Co., Watertown. “If there aren’t enough grants, there won’t be enough to run the organization.”/ppThe organization’s audit was discussed during its meeting on Thursday at Jefferson Community College./pp“It makes you sit up and take note and work on our financial stream,” said Carl A. McLaughlin, the FDRLO’s executive director, during the meeting. “We have to address the situation now.”/ppThe organization’s assets dropped from $433,179 at the end of 2014 to $244,316 at the end of 2015, a 44 percent decrease./pp“These factors as well as the uncertain conditions that the Organization faces regarding grant revenues in the future, create uncertainty about the Organization’s ability to continue as a going concern,” the audit said./ppThough FDRLO told auditors it had the funds to sustain itself for 2016, it added operations would “have to be curtailed or reduced” unless new grants were found./ppMr. McLaughlin said that while many of FDRLO’s project costs, including its economic task force, are covered by targeted outside grant support, the group struggles to find funding to cover its day to day operational expenses./ppThose expenses include $111,057 in direct salaries, $25,467 in professional fees and $25,130 in costs relating to its office operations on Washington Street. Overall, the group listed $336,875 in expenses for the year./ppThe organization reported $196,908 in 2015 revenue, including $68,250 in grants for 2015, and $35,604 in membership dues./ppMr. McLaughlin told the Times Monday that the organization is waiting for the state’s response to a $300,000 grant proposal, with two-thirds going to daily operations and the other third for specific projects./ppThe organization’s board will hold a special meeting on June 13 to further discuss the group’s finances./pp“Right now there’s no clear solution we can talk about, but we’ll go through the brainstorming process,” Mr. McLaughlin said. “Long term, we need to rely on more than the state of New York.”/ppOver the years, he said the group has discussed the funding issue, with limited results./pp“We’ve never come to a point where we have a solution we wanted to pursue,” Mr. McLaughlin said./ppThe organization was established in 1990 as the successor to the Fort Drum Steering Council. The group lobbies for the post to state and federal officials and helps increase communication between local civilian and post leaders./ppIn recent years, the organization has helped assemble events a href="http://www.watertowndailytimes.com/news03/communitys-outpouring-of-support-for-fort-drum-overwhelms-even-posts-commander-video-20150321"like a 2015 rally to support Fort Drum as it faced troop cuts/a. The post ended up a href="http://www.watertowndailytimes.com/news03/sigh-of-relief-fort-drum-to-lose-only-28-soldiers-in-army-wide-personnel-cut-video-20150710"losing only 28 soldiers/a./ppMr. McLaughlin said the area continues to face threats such as sequestration and base realignment and closure./pp“Somebody has to be monitoring those things, someone has to be advocating for the post, somebody has to be preparing the community,” he said. “That’s what we do.”/p
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