By Philip Sean Curran
HIGHLANDS – The borough hired an auditing firm to review the financial records of the Highlands Business Partnership, the nonprofit group that used to get taxpayer dollars to promote the community.
“They’ll do like a closing audit, more or less,” said Kim Gonzales, borough administrator, of the work by the firm Holman Frenia Allison. The firm is the regular borough auditor.
In addition to financial records, the audit would also include any assets the HBP might have had. She said she expects to get the report in six weeks.
She said the audit is the borough doing its due diligence, not a reflection that officials are questioning the HBP’s past practices.
The partnership was the management corporation of Highland’s business improvement district for 20 years. Commercial property owners located within the district have had to pay an additional assessment of $73,000 a year that the borough collected and provided to the HBP.
But earlier this year, the borough council adopted an ordinance with a sunset clause ending the HBP’s role at the end of September.
Mayor Rick O’Neil said the HBP can still run events in town like it did before.
“Now, they have to get money from participants as opposed to just across the board businesses,” he said.
In the meantime, the borough stopped collecting the special assessment.
