PFM was used in the past to justify the funding plans for schools in Lakeland TN.  They have proven to not be an accurate, reliable, or trustworthy source of financial advice.

PFM has:

• Used inaccurate financial information in their financial models when the actual financial data for those years was already available
• They used financial assumptions provided by the city to inaccurately predict the finances of the city and was even off by their first year of prediction by 2 million dollars.
• They were hand selected as a vendor by being initially paid just under the $10,000 limit that would require their work to go out to bid.
• They were paid a bonus of $33,000 when Lakeland secured a loan for the middle school. This is after their financial recommendations were used to justify the affordability of the loan. This represents a conflict of interest

The citizens of the city of Lakeland have no confidence in any financial recommendations that PFM would make and we no longer want to use them as a vendor. We are asking the Lakeland Board of Commissioners to select a different organization outside Memphis and the surrounding area to advise us in the matter.  We would also like to replace them as a current vendor.

The citizens of Lakeland TN deserve accurate financial predictions when making decisions that will impact them for the next 12-30 years.