Akron has made a “good faith” effort to respond to the concerns State Auditor Dave Yost raised about the city’s accounting practices rather than what he deemed a “cursory treatment,” city officials said Monday in Akron’s second attempt at a plan to satisfy Yost.The city cut its number of funds from 740 to 121 by the end of 2011 and finished the year with about $12 million in negative fund balances — an 88 percent reduction from the $104 million Yost identified as of March of last year. Akron now says it can do away with the rest of its negative fund balances by the end of 2013 — two years ahead of its original projection.“Rather than giving a ‘cursory treatment’ of changes in fiscal policies and budgetary conditions, the city has provided and is providing good faith responses,” city officials wrote in a 50-plus page document filed late Monday with Yost’s office. “And, more importantly, the city has taken and is taking actions to discontinue and correct those fiscal polices and budgetary conditions complained of by the auditor.”Yost wasn’t satisfied with Akron’s first response to the issues he pointed to regarding the city’s budgeting process, calling it a “cursory treatment” of his concerns and saying it lacked “substance and sufficient detail.” He gave Akron until Monday to come up with a better plan, warning that failure to do so could result in the city being elevated from the new “fiscal caution” category to the more serious “fiscal watch” that triggers state oversight.Yost also ordered Akron to submit quarterly reports showing its progress, with the first due April 20 for the quarter ending March 31. Carrie Bartunek, Yost’s press secretary, said Monday that her office will review Akron’s second plan and “make a determination if we should ask for anything else or if it is acceptable.” She said this wouldn’t be an overnight process.Yost, who released Akron’s 2010 audit on Oct. 5, ordered the city to fix poor accounting practices that led to a $104 million fund deficit as of last March. He said Akron has been undertaking capital projects without the revenue to pay for them and faulted the city for having too many funds.In Akron’s latest response to Yost, the city said it:• Reduced its negative fund balances to $12,032,317 in 14 funds at the end of 2011.• Will cut the negative fund balances to $7,010,040 by the end of 2012 and eliminate the rest by the end of 2013. The city projected in its first proposal to Yost that it would take until 2015 to erase the negative balances. Yost told Akron he wanted this deficiency addressed by 2013.• Cut the number of funds to 121. Akron said 81 of these funds are required by federal and state law and Yost ordered the city to create three new funds. Altogether, the city says it has eliminated 83.5 percent of its funds.• Issued $146.1 million in debt and other obligations in November and December to reduce the deficit balances, fund ongoing projects and refund prior debt, providing “substantial savings to the city.”• Will hire a consultant by April 30 to “review and evaluate the city’s entire accounting, fiscal and budgetary process.” The consultant will issue a report by Dec. 31, identifying any deficiencies he or she finds and provide “an estimate of the scope and expense of, and a reasonable schedule for” addressing these problems.Akron’s new plan provided significantly more documentation, which Yost had requested, to explain the efforts the city has made so far and plans to make. The revised plan was so lengthy that city officials had trouble sending it to the auditor’s office, ultimately breaking it into four documents so it could get through.Despite the auditor’s concern about Akron having funds with deficits, Akron officials have maintained that the city has money elsewhere in the budget to cover the deficits, with more funds having positive than negative balances. The city ended 2011 with a carry-over in its general fund of about $5 million, which was about the same as the year before, said Finance Director Diane Miller-Dawson. Public Service Director Rick Merolla, who helped with Akron’s revised plan, called the response to the auditor “a frustrating bookkeeping exercise.”“We’ve always had money in the bank and always will,” he said.Merolla said city officials think having fewer funds — rather than more to show the spending on individual projects — is “less transparent.” Miller-Dawson said Cabinet members and her staff worked hard to craft both the original and revised plan submitted to Yost.“We didn’t think it was a ‘cursory’ effort,’ ” she said.Mayor Don Plusquellic echoed this sentiment in a news release the city issued Monday night.“The city’s staff has performed a tremendous amount of work to respond to the original and additional demands of the state auditor,” he said. “We have made a sincere attempt to meet the auditor’s unique demands. Our city has been and will continue to be fiscally responsible and use accepted accounting procedures that allow even more transparency than state law requires.”Miller-Dawson said part of the reason responding to Yost was difficult was because he asked for “two things” and then added on “six more things” that he wanted.Asked if Yost will be satisfied with Akron’s new plan, Law Director Cheri Cunningham, who also helped with the proposal, said, “He should be.”City officials again partially blamed the state for Akron’s negative fund balances, including the Ohio Department of Taxation’s failure to approve about $4 million in taxes for economic development projects the city is owed. Akron had hoped the state would sign off on the city’s 16 pending Tax Increment Financing applications — several that date back four years — by the end of last year. Akron also is anticipating a $4.5 million loss this year in the local government funds it receives from the state. “We were able to do this with the state continuing to reduce our revenues,” Miller-Dawson said.Stephanie Warsmith can be reached at 330-996-3705 or swarsmith@thebeaconjournal.com.