Meeting transcript
Board of Finance - Special Meeting
June 9, 2022 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
Okay, thank you everybody, so this is the. 06/09/2022 board of finance special meeting. Call this meeting to order. This is a meeting to set the mill rate, etc. You see the agenda on there. We'll go ahead and call to order and say the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, of liberty and justice for all. Okay, thank you. We'll go ahead on to agenda item two, which is public speak. Do we have any members of the public who want to speak? Eric, do want to do the round? We have Kimberly Persson. I'm not sure who else is here. Okay, we'll start with Kimberly Persson. I'm all set. Just listening. Thank you. Okay. Next, phone with last number 2020. That's me. Ah, got it. Okay. That's Louise. Yeah. Sorry. Okay.
No problem. And last number, 5579. Marina, I assume that's you? That is me. Yep, so that would be it for public speak.
Okay, we'll go ahead to agenda item three, which is the, we'll call it a budget workshop for the twenty twenty two-twenty twenty three fiscal year. I think we have a budget that's past referendum so there's probably not much to discuss here but if anybody has any comments or questions or input we can certainly discuss it at this point.
I have just one question. Do we have the official tally from the meeting? I like to keep track of the number of people voted. Yeah, from the referendum and the questions again. I just keep that for my personal, someone, if you know Eric or something. That's a good question. Yep. That's fine.
Hang on two secs. I took a picture of the official results.
I do like to compare it to the previous year to see if we have more voters, less voters, how it's swinging, you know, so it's interesting. Me just go to my other phone. Hang on. No rush, Eric, just anytime
you can send it to me. While we're doing that, Mark, I was trying to, before you started, did we hear from our other members?
Like I see a couple of people missing. I didn't see an email. Kurt had responded that he could not make it. Okay. And I didn't hear back from specifically from Rob, but I know that Thursday and Fridays are often difficult for him because of his family duties.
No, I just, I think it's good if we know that. So if people are coming or not. No, thank you. Okay,
Diane total voters registered voters in the town of Andover 2,241. Total people that came out to vote five twenty four, which was a 23% turnout, which for a budget is very good. Question number one, shall the budget be approved? Yes, two ninety two, No, two thirty. Blank, two. Non binding advisory question number two. Is the Andover Elementary School budget too high, February? Too low? 01/1954? Blank? 85? Question number three. Is the Andover budget too high? $2.37. Too low? 164. Blank? 123. Interesting. Okay.
Oh, I still have a significant of people who still think everything's too high. Okay. Oh, that's interesting.
Most people think gas is too high too, but yeah.
Can I make, what was interesting that I found out about budget, I guess it, I know Eric said something about registered voters? I learned that as long as you pay taxes, think in this town, you're allowed to vote even if you're not a registered voter. I
checked no, is that not I don't think that's correct. Think you have to be a Yeah, registered voter in
I'm not stating it correctly. Carol Lee is the one who gave me the info Cause I asked, because I think I was researching something one time, a different town and it said something about all property owners. So I could have the verbiage wrong, but it's not necessarily if you're registered to vote, you know, in a party that's interesting I wouldn't have been aware of that. Yeah, I don't know if everyone knows that so there's but whatever. Thank you.
Well, it is interesting because when you when you look at the numbers. So, out of the people that voted to approve the budget which is two ninety two two eighty five two 80 three people said the AES budget was too high versus $2.37 for the town so there's a significant swing there, almost you know those people obviously voted to approve the budget, even though they felt that the ES budget might have been too high. So it's a good question Diane and interesting to have that information.
It's just good to track it historically to see if there's any correlation to anything, but it
obviously tells us something that we already know which is that a lot of the angst over the budget is about the AES budget to me you've got two eighty three voting that the school budget is too high versus two thirty seven for the town. Now there are a lot of people from the town who didn't vote who, you know, who didn't make a choice which we assume means neutral on or because I'm assuming a blank means they're okay with it. You know what I mean? Yep. Yep. Okay. Alright.
Discussion being high. It's just interesting to see how people think. Yeah. For sure.
I'd like to say something. Can the results or has the results been posted to the website, under the budget part? No. They have not.
No, it might be a good idea to do that so people stop asking other people, did you hear anything about it yet? And sometimes you hear unofficial stuff, you know, on Facebook.
Well, look, there there will be a bunch of posts made on Monday. Right now, Amanda's out this week, and it's not that I can't post it. You know, it's just me getting it in the right spot consistently does not seem to happen very often. So Okay. It will
get posted. But generally generally, it does. Right? Yes. Yeah. Okay.
Further questions or comments about the budget? Okay, hearing none, we'll move on to agenda item four, which is to adopt the mill rate for fiscal year twenty twenty two-twenty twenty three per our budget that was I
don't think you saw me raising my hand. Sorry. No, I'm sorry. Go ahead, Joanne. Yeah, it's quick. I mean, is there is the document that's posted on the website or the one that we're going to work on, is that finalized with any little tweaks that were made? That's all.
So I'm not sure what's on the website, but the one that was approved for the town referendum. Yeah.
Yeah. Eric, is that on the website? You know the answer to Joanne's question? Yes.
The budget that was put forward for the town meeting three weeks or so ago is the official because the town meeting approved it. It went to referendum. So we can't do any tweaks on that budget at this point.
I don't mean tweaks adding or subtracting. Just were mistakes caught or something. I know. So I guess not. Thank you. Sorry. No. Dumb dumb question from me, but I didn't know if, you know, along the way, we found a couple things here and there. I don't know if there were any changes that didn't result in changing the bottom line, I guess. Just yeah, thank you. Yeah.
I'm not sure what's posted, okay. Further questions or comments?
I hope I'm allowed to ask this question now. I did send an email, I guess, is Marina our person and hi Marina taking the notes and everything tonight. Had posed a question in, hello, I had posed a question in email to see if we were gonna have, you know, anyone else from the finance department present to ask budget questions or other questions, but I assume that's a no.
That is a no. Sherry is sick. I asked her specifically to attend this meeting, and she said no, she's too sick.
Oh, well, of course, if she's sick. Okay, thank you. Glad Marina's here.
Further questions. Okay, let's go ahead and we'll move on to agenda item for which is adopted mill rate for fiscal year twenty twenty two twenty twenty three budget per the town budget that was approved at the referendum. We had a calculated mill rate of 31.91 Eric is that jive with what you have. That is correct. Okay, would anybody like to make a motion that we adopt the mill rate of thirty one nine one.
I will make a motion that we adopt the no rate of 31.91.
Okay, Diane so moves. Do we have any seconds? I'll second it. Okay, Louise seconds. Thank you. Do we have any discussion?
I would just clarify that that's for the fiscal year twenty twenty two-twenty twenty three year.
Okay, so noted. Think that's reasonable clarification. If we're voting on any other mill rate, it would be inappropriate. Any further discussion or questions. Okay, hearing none we'll go ahead and take a vote all those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, any abstentions? Okay, the motion passes unanimously 500. Thank you everybody.
Go ahead, Eric. One thing quick under this line, typically, and I know we didn't do it last year, but normally the chair of the Board of Finance sends a letter to the tax collector and the assessor's office formally adopting and announcing the bill. So, and we'd like to get that as soon as possible because we need to start sending out tax bills. You'll have that tomorrow. Thank you very much. So that goes to Carol and to the assessor.
That goes to the assessor's office who's John Treponis and then a copy to the tax collector who's Eileen Kirk. Oh, we're tax collector.
And I'll copy you and the board. That would be great. Thank you. Thank you, Mark.
Okay, we'll move on to item number five which is discussion the audit so Eric we had a meeting today and my my apologies for not catching the beginning of that. You want to give us a short summary of our situation and the plan to move forward?
Sure. So we still do not have a completed audit. There's a fairly significant cash discrepancy between the bank balance and the balance in, know, the essentially last year end, you know, reconciliation as audit. The auditor still thinks it's an issue between the reconciliation of the school account and the school budget and the town budget. So, and it's high enough, he's given me a bunch of different numbers over the last month, but all of them are over $100,000 which is the difference between a significant finding, you know, in a relatively minor finding. I mean, nobody's expecting it to be spot on, but right now there's a big enough difference that it's clearly a material finding if we can't address it. So, starting tomorrow morning, Jeff McGuire has agreed to sit down with Marina. And then as soon as Sherry comes back from being sick with Sherry also and see whether, you know, Maureen has identified a whole series of things that she thinks are an issue, and we've got those lined out and just try to see whether we can reconcile the two. You know, that's the kind of plan we have at the moment for going forward. Obviously, of us are happy to get into this position and still not have, you know, a functional audit. We know part of the problem that year was, you know, we started off with one finance person who was Barbara Griffin.
Barbara resigned. There was a little bit of overlap between Marina who tripped over as the assistant finance officer. We went, you know, another four or five months before we had a finance director And we paid on a consulting basis, somebody to Laura, the old school business manager to fill in in part, but you know, we had essentially 100 transition in that office and it did not go smoothly by any means. Know.
I'm not following something so when you say bank balance between the school budget and the town budget. So are you saying that the checkbook for the town and the school don't match the balances? We can't get the the balances to reconcile back to the bank. Correct.
Correct. But the bank reconciliation is incorrect because there were a series of things that were not posted correctly that have to get fixed. And there's a fairly big difference in cash between what's what was actually the bank balance and what was the balance as listed in Phoenix on the town side. They account for the things that were not posted. So, the bank has less money. Understand like what date paper,
sorry Diane, you know. I just want to know does the bank have less money than what we think we have? Correct. It's not in our favor. Other words, okay.
Discrepancy is not in our favor. Go ahead, go ahead. So
that I understand because I try to, you know, I try to learn and grow my brain. So last year's audit, right now we're talking about the end of the year that started like, okay, so we're in June 2022. We're talking about a fiscal year that ended June 2021? 2021, yeah, 2020, 2021 fiscal year. But the year prior,
he referenced two. Did that all go clear? Like you said, with the start of that till the end? I mean, did that? As far as we know, the audit from 2019. Thank you. 2020
is good. The question is the audit from twenty twenty twenty one, kind of is the issue.
Which has been worked on forever, right? And these new problems are coming up now?
No, these are problems from the last fiscal year, they're part of the current audit. No, no, I understand, but it ended 2021. So yes, the current fiscal year ended June 2020
'1. So a year ago it finished. Right. Just to me, it's the enormity of the problem that knowing a lot, you know, Ram, I'm just putting it all in just into my scope of what I know. I know all of you have been involved, but generally this should be tied up, signed, sealed, delivered January, and we're still finding all these huge problems now is all I'm saying. I'm sorry, I really am outspoken. So I'm gonna say No,
think it's a legitimate concern I mean, obviously we changed software systems, etc. Blah, blah, blah, new finance director challenges getting the school and town finances integrated,
but there's no I've done every single meeting for the town and the board you know as many as so I do follow it just I just want to state it out loud that's just shocking I know it was the new system and and I tried to even
talk to I think Maria. Well the new system has nothing to do with the last audit. The last audit is on Phoenix. So the new system is this year. Right.
I just wanna make sure that we all state out loud what's happening. Right, thank you, Diane. I know that I was trying, I remember with talking, since we're talking audit, when Marina came on board and, you know, there were new employees, there was Jay, there was Marina and Sherry, and I know Marina came on board first and Sherry followed, but Sherry was on board at least a few months before the changeover and the transition to the new software. I'd have to find my notes. Correct. So thank you. I'll step back. You guys are more experienced, but the enormity of it is that we're talking about last year's audit that ended last June 30 and we're still
So, Joanne, Joanne, you're right. Yeah. We have started the audit in August, wanna say, started working with the auditor to start pulling, you know, items that they wanted us to start going through. And Sherry and I did that for both the town and the school, and then we didn't hear from them for months. Yeah. I don't know what happened. I don't know if they had a staffing change because now we have totally different people working with Michael. So we didn't hear back from them until probably February, March, and then really got into the front of it then, and it's been since March going back and forth, you know, finding additional things.
Thank you, that does explain it. Like you start right, you know, you try to, that's what I was kind of saying this time Marina, when you try to close everything out, all this stuff has to be ordered you like in guys get all the bills in and then that's great to hear. So you did start on the, I knew, you know, I tried to go so thank you just to understand. So it really was pulling stuff for them. They had it, but then they didn't start their quest because I've been audited and I was an accounts, a grants accountant in a school system. So those audits are not fun in the summer, you know, where you have to find every last thing, it Right. Yeah. So then you gave them the stuff they wanted. You did not hear back till this March.
Yeah. It was it was yeah. Probably months. And I know Harry would reach out to Michael, you know, for an update, and I'm I'm not sure what it was definitely a few months for sure. Over the holidays, we didn't hear anything, but it ideally, it would have been great to have it all said and done, you know, by January, like you said, but it's, yeah, I don't know what happened there. That's why this year, I'm trying to do as much as I can now, and Eric asked me to put a list together of things for the next audit, you know, once this is all settled so that in August, September, October, we can start, you know, getting things together that will help for this year's audit next year and get it done earlier than, you know, the end of the fiscal year.
Yeah, and no blame at all. I just like to understand it. It sounds like it's a lot on their end too, and I know you'll have questions going forward. But then at least you've when now did you start Marina? If you don't mind, because now it's a full year in.
So we the week of Thanksgiving twenty twenty, I started. So really a year and a half, basically. Right.
Yeah. So it it was a lot. You know, when I came in, I really only had Laura and Barbara for a little bit and then was kind of on my own to figure things out. And then once Sherry got on, trying to get her acclimated and then trying to go back and fix everything. And it's it's been challenging and I'm, you know, doing everything I can with the auditors to try to pull whatever information I can try to, you know, get this settled. I'm gonna sit down with Jeff a water tomorrow and go through everything I have with him just to have another eye, you know, people look at things as well.
Yeah. Thank you for that explanation. Thanks for your efforts.
Well, I have a question. As I recall, okay, when we got to last year, we closed the year, the fiscal year ending 2021, a little bit later than we wanted to. I think it was somewhere September, October ish that we actually But got the final finance I thought the delay on closing the month was waiting for bills to come in and things like that, but also getting all the bank accounts reconciled. We reconciled all our bank accounts for last year, correct? Yes, yep, they're all reconciled. We had to close out the year. Obviously, what we did had some deficiencies in it that the auditor found that we did not find.
Yeah. So a lot of things like I've been trying to work on and the big issue is that the server crashed for Phoenix. So I can't I'm literally going off of a report that I found stuff in my backpack from last summer from July 7, which they got I had it, but I'm trying to go through line by line between the school and the town to ensure everything was posted, you know, account payable batches, payroll, insurance, any deposits, etcetera, etcetera. And I found a few things, of course, that, you know, I didn't post when I started or I posted something twice or post something that shouldn't have been posted. So I'm trying to figure out all those line items that I had given them to the auditor, which in turn made the difference bigger. But they had asked me today to go through all those things that I found and post, you know, what the what the journal entry would be to correct it. So all these things that are missing that I found correlate back to previous bank recs or maybe that difference wasn't put in. So the all the bank recs may need to go through get gone through again.
They said that might be an issue as well, but that's another bridge we'll have to possibly get there.
Right. So I'm assuming even though this was Phoenix, don't we have our work papers from doing the bank reconciliations for last year? Yes, we do. Yeah. Everything yeah. Yep. So all of our accounts were balanced, and we just didn't find the discrepancies. Is that The a true
question in my mind is, if there were significant things missing from them, how could it balance?
Right. So, I'm just trying to say, how can we sign off that our accounts are reconciled and then find this off later? Do you know what I mean? Unless there were posting errors that we didn't recognize. And that could be. I guess I just want to understand the root cause of the problem because I don't wanna repeat it.
Correct. It's definitely since the the cash that we have in our account is more it's things that that's why I wanna go through the journal like, the proposed journal entries of how it would correct it because if we have too much money, then it's some it's some entry somewhere that are not there's something missing entries wise somewhere. So, hopefully, Jeff and I can go through that tomorrow.
Then consulting with Sherry as well. I mean, I know I mean, has she been helpful in getting it resolved?
She's been doing she went through, like, most of the bank reconciliations that I've been trying to go through. You know, I was the one that had a single report from Phoenix. You know, it's, like, the last the last thing possible that we have left in the system to go through. So I was working on, you know, going through any journal entries that maybe weren't made. Like I was saying, any accounts payable or payrolls or, you know, anything of that matter because in in theory, I was the one that was doing those journal entries. So I was more familiar with those items to do that. I mean, as I was working on it, obviously, I was talking with Sherry, you know, I was physically doing the work, but together we were, you know, going over it.
So where do we go from here? I do want to be part of any kind of exit interviews or any kind of interviews we have with the auditor because I really want to understand this. Yeah.
I think one of the things that we came out of a brief meeting we had today is that we there's a lot of digging to be done. So I think the auditor in Eric, correct me if I'm wrong so I missed the first part of the meeting but there's some journal entries and others that I think they've identified as potential problem areas that they need to clarify. But the long and short of it is that we need to file for an extension with the state. And so the plan is to file for an extension until end of June, and have you know aggressively work this situation over the next couple of weeks until we get this stuff resolved. Means it's going to be require you know Jeff is
fortunately obviously is a CPA and then that helps us out a little bit he's going to work with Marina, and we got to engage. Sherry as soon as she's available back from her illness get in, you know, get on this and answer the questions that need to be answered in the school that we can't, we can't let that kind of hang out there too. I don't know that we have that many answers right now but there's a lot of questions about what, you know, kind of what happened I think next year hopefully we'll be in a lot much better position, but right now there's there's some a lot of open questions and we've got to apply for another extension to get this thing done. How soon.
I just want to make sure we understand what happens so we can go forward correctly. Joanne?
Mark, just because you had said you were all together for a meeting today and you got to know the extent of it, it sounds pretty serious. It it is serious. This thing should be done. You know, we have problem. I mean, I I'm holding back. So, clearly, I'm really biting my tongue, and it's not directed
at the arena at all. Mean No. And and and I don't think it should be, but it because
yeah. I mean, lot of things have been said in these meetings. Diana said she wanted to be present if because she'll be the, you know, glue. I mean, I'm glad you were there. No. And and just I know month to month, Erica said they they're working with the auditors. They're doing this. That's taking all their time. So it's frustrating that they submitted some stuff at the beginning and then they didn't hear back. I mean, a person like, if that was me and I'm being really kind and not Marina, she wasn't the director, I'd be calling them.
And I'd be saying, you know, the reality I think though is that in Eric, you can correct me if I'm wrong is that we made mistakes along the way, so I don't think we can pin this on the auditor. I think that we we made errors so we had you know we had a new system we had new people with a lot of turnover. As Eric mentioned, and there we we made mistakes so the auditor is, you know, by nature it's not their job to balance the books every month. It would be better if they were engaged earlier and responding.
Yeah. Oh, I'm not blaming. I just would be calling them to get together. I'm not going in that direction at all. I'm not blaming anybody yet. I'm just want to hear it all want to. Yeah, no, I just meant calling to say, Hey, how's it going? Can we hear from you? That kind of call. Yeah,
I mean, I think the I think when I say it's serious, I think part of that's my own personal frustration, which I know you guys share that we're even talking about this right now. And we shouldn't be. But it is what it is, and I think you know I don't think that like this, the town's facing a kind of financial reporting crisis, but it's just, you know, and I'm preaching to the choir here I know you guys want this, you know, want the T's crossed and the eyes dotted and everything lining up and so it's very frustrating to even be at this point. Yeah, I missed the first part of the meeting. Today, obviously, most many of us work day jobs, so we you know, but we had the auditor when we could get them. And there's some work to be done. But, you know, it's very very frustrating but I think right now we just have more questions than answers and there's not. Know, I absolutely share the Diane sentiment and I think you're getting at the same place Joanne that we need to understand the root cause what what happened.
This is likely to happen again I'm guessing that given the fact that we're moving into a different direction in terms of the town's finances and we have the new software etc but our confidence is shaken, you know, and we need to, we need to make sure that things are being done, done properly. So do our job without accurate financial reporting.
Yeah, don't know if it's financial reporting is that far off it's just that the balances and everything and the entries need to be allocated to the correct accounts etc so I don't know Eric you have anything to add to that am I mischaracterizing anything.
Mean, you know, every year since I've been involved. You know we've had to seek three or four extensions on the audit. When we as a town had our act together reasonably well the the reality is you know the auditor never really has never really started seriously working on our you know on the town stuff till after the new year at the earliest. Now not for this past fiscal year, you know, Michael had said they had had enough less than we had gotten a little farther up in the pecking order, you know, and he thought this year we would actually get on the list and get work done in the fall with the intention of not having to get an extension because we all expressed to the auditor last year that, you know, we really didn't, you know we were really unhappy with going that far into the budgeting season you know and not have solid numbers to work. Now, but the reality is and I thought we were doing okay early on because Mike sent one of his CPAs, Nick, in and sent him in in like August asking for information, which has never happened to us before. Usually, you know, if we're lucky they show up to pull that stuff in December or the beginning of January.
Early on I have an email from July 28. I have an email I just looked quick. I have an email from July 28 of them asking for us to start pulling selection.
Right, so I mean early on it looked like, you know, we were going to actually be reasonably on time for once. So, you know, I was quite encouraged early on, but then for whatever reason, you know, after an initial spurt of pulling information, usually they go away for a month or two and then we start getting either further information or preliminary reports back, you know, and they really didn't engage with the town again until almost March. Now, the problem is in March, you know, we were still kind of a cluster and you know we hadn't done this year, some of the financial statements that in the past Barbara had done, which made the which makes the audit a lot easier. So, that's on us. But on the other hand, there was zero turnover between Barbara who did them in previous years and Sherry, and we never really got a list from the auditor of the things they expected us to do and produce. So by the time Michael came back to me in March and said, Hey, you know, you really need financial statements, you know, it's like, well, we don't have them. How do we proceed?
You know, and Mahoney essentially agreed to do the financial statements, which they'd done for the first couple of years when they audited the town, hadn't done it in a few years. You know, and that was a delay, you know, and then after that they were just doing random sampling and Michael came back and said, there's a couple things early in the process that don't make sense, you know, and we've kind of been going down that rabbit hole since then. So what I would say is there's plenty of blame, You know, the auditor certainly was not prompt in working on the town of Andover, but we certainly didn't have our act together either.
I just find it disconcerning that they find significant discrepancies that we ourselves could not detect because we should be going through and reconciling our bank accounts every month and doing our checks and balances. So, in the back of my mind, I see that we may have some process deficiencies that we don't have enough of the checks and balances in place. And that's what I'm looking forward. You know, that we make sure that whatever we do, we find out why this happened, how it happened, and we put the appropriate processes in place going forward so it doesn't happen again. The past is the past, can't change that. We can just fix going forward. With that, I just want to ask the one question that's been lagging. Do we stand this fiscal year that's ending June 30 on reconciling our bank accounts? Are we up to date or how far behind are we? We've reconciled through April at this point.
And Aurek, whose responsibility is that? I mean, it been up until this year? The finance director does reconciliation.
That's what I thought. Okay. I just wanted to ask the question. So we're through April and I'm looking at it, you know, and learning too, because we make a lot of decisions. Clearly, I'm preaching to the choir, you know, on budgets and meetings and everything based on how a prior year goes, like all of you said, you know, and it's yeah, it is frustrating when we can't know. You would think that June 30, maybe by April we would know or some but again, I'm not gonna, you know, go over and over something that we can't change. I moved to this town seventeen years ago and from day one, and it's been the finance, it's been all about the finance department. I was very involved at the beginning, raised my children through high school, everything, came back to it, the same thing was happening. So after sitting through the two, I don't know, I feel like it took a year to get the finance department together, so we'll see. Yeah, it's just frustrating that I feel like it's just been a common theme forever and you all know that too. So, blaming everyone. Everyone
knows it. You know, I know we have a lot of digging through and another lot of stuff to go through to figure this out and all that and I get that. But in the end run, I would like to know exactly what happened and the timeline of how things happen so we don't repeat our mistakes. So, we should be learning from this and we should be making a timeline and understanding what happened so we can make sure we don't have any issues similar that's in this year that we don't know about yet. So, that's all I want to say. I just don't want to repeat the same mistakes.
Other questions or comments? More to come. Very frustrating. Obviously, we hope to be past this and I'm an optimist so I'm hoping next year we'll not be talking about this in June.
I'm not going to let us talk about it in June because we're going talk about it way before then. I'm going to be the knack. I'm sorry.
Well, and the other thing we have to seriously consider is, you know, and we honestly we should have done it, you know, four months ago, but do we consider going out for an RFP for auditing services, you know, and pick again? One, I'm not absolutely sure Michael is willing to audit us again, frankly. You know, I was hoping we would have that discussion already with him, but I think he's kind of waiting to see whether we can actually sort ourselves out before committing to auditing next year. And the reality is, well, I mean, we're certainly not the only town without an audit at this point. There's unfortunately a fair number of them. But I would really like to be in the position of having an audit done a whole hell of a lot sooner than this, but I
don't know. One of the things that's concerned me is that the numbers of people auditing municipalities has been decreasing in the state. And like I know Coventry, their Board of Finance made them go out to RFP this year for auditing services. And the only company that bid on it was the company that was already doing their audits and they are up their prices. You know, they basically said, well, if you're going to make us conform to an RFP, we're changing our price schedule. So, they're in the process of arguing with their auditor that they should honor their original agreement for the extension, and their auditors basically said, no, you took it to RFP, wanted to test the waters, here's the price net. So, don't know. I don't know, most of the towns that have gone to RFP have gotten at most one vendor even willing to do it, which is what what scares me right now.
I am not. I don't want to go to RFP right now and I'll say my personal opinion because we don't know what the root cause of anything is. I think a lot of our issues are our processes and our checks and balances and the things that we don't have cleaned up in our own house. You know, the auditor should expect to get work papers from us with be complete inaccurate. So if we can't produce stuff, then, you know, shame on us. We're supposed to keep the records. So, you know, after this audit is put to bed, then I think it's a discussion of what we wanna do next, but I don't think it's anything I would do right now. We have too many questions to even understand what the issues are.
Right. But I would also say that if we may wait a month or two, every month we wait now, know, since, I mean, we should have already notified the state who our auditor for next year is already technically, you know, let alone. So, if we are going to make a different choice, you know, that decision needs to be made relatively quickly.
Well, and we don't even know what our problems are so we don't even know what to do.
We're not in a position to make any kind of decision right now. Right. So I mean, we need the facts before we do anything.
And we also have to realize that now at the end of this month, I think Sherry moves on to her new role. I mean, I and so poor Marina as a fellow worker bee is going to be caught in the middle of all of this you know so we're cognizant of that Marina. I support you in your role but it's you know it's going be tough if there's a mess and then she's, you know, trying to figure this to get the audit finalized and all of that, plus start whatever she needs to do for good processes and procedures in the town going forward so that it's really gonna snowball. So I hope that this next week or whatever meetings you have and Mr. Maguire comes in and helps and that it goes faster rather than slower, just because, you know, we're not in any really good shape in our, you know, if you had two people there before and now it's just Marina, it's going to be difficult,
you know, for now. Well, it's one step at a time. Once we got to get through this audit, we need to understand what the issues are And then we'll know. And then from there, we can decide what we need to put in place going forward. But until we have the answers, there's nothing we can do.
You know? So, Diane, kind of piggybacking on what you were saying. You know, I talked to and Samantha, his you know, the other girl that's working on the on this. And I was saying to them, you know, if we have to go through all these bank recs and do all this to get this done, and now, like, Joanne was saying, yes. Now going forward, it's me and, you know, whoever we end up hiring for a treasurer. So, ultimately, I believe the bank rep will become my responsibility. So I wanna make sure everything for this last year, the current year that we're in, is good and come up with a better process because we've just been following the Excel sheet that Barbara was using previously, and even the auditor was like, there's there needs to be a better way to do this. And Edmunds does have a bank reconciliation function that I believe will link right with the bank account to make it kind of less manual and more automated of what's going between the two. So that might be something we should look at as well. Yes. Yeah. Because, ultimately, my workload will become a little bigger with more budget and audit grant, whatever else will be in it, and to make anything easier for myself that has less manual work. If that's something that ends up working well, then hopefully that's
Once we identify what the issues are and literally speaking, if we have to, you know, pay professional services to come in and have admins come in and get us, you know, cleaned up on the software or extra training we need, We need to weigh based on what we find out of this audit and where our needs are, what we need to do to get over the hump. Because if we don't fix the problem now and get it going forward, know, we're just compounding every month. So once we find out what the issues are, we can formulate a plan and execute a very well thought out crafted plan about how to get on track. And I think that's worth the effort putting into. Oh, I appreciate know, critical to that because there's Yeah. I'm sure there's a million things you have ideas on. So
Yes. That's what even yeah. To make anything that's gonna be easier, a, for me, b, for the audit, and c, for anything that you guys have to review is I'm believe me, I'm all for whatever we have to do to get this resolved and get anything in place going forward to make it a better process. Great.
I suspect we'll have more information for our next meeting and hopefully we can you know be able to respond more effectively at that point.
Idea Michael did throw out was bringing in a consultant he said maybe like a retired finance director or someone you know works part time as a CPA or whatever just to have someone go through maybe all the bank recs again from last year with whatever findings that I found and just just to have another outside person go through them all. Because, frankly, after looking at it so many times, it turns into a different language with me looking at it.
Yep. It has. Yeah. You can't check your own work. It's hard. Yeah. You know, one person show.
Yeah, think Jeff had just basically said he wants to take a look at it and take a quick crack at it before we commit to hiring outside person to consult. Right. No, yeah, I agree. Yeah.
Okay, and it's not completely on topic, but I just wanted to ask a question. So, we had put off the last couple of meetings making any of the adjustments. And Marina and I have been trying to figure out how we do them all to get the majority of them in into you. So the next budget meeting is on the twenty second. The good thing about that is the last payroll gets cut on the twentieth, you know, and we'll cut checks on the twenty first. So that should be the last time we cut checks before July 1 and that will be the last payroll of the fiscal year. So our goal was to set aside pretty much all of the twenty second, you know, and just Marina and I and Sherry sit down and go through all the budget transfers to that we need to make. There will be some things we will not be able to account for at that point And some of them will be big. Like for instance, we will not get the bill for the resident state trooper till sometime in August, because that's when the state sent. So there are some things we can't deal with, but we can deal with probably 97% or 98% of the things we need to deal with. My problem is that that means we're going to be finishing it up the same day as the meeting. And so we're not going to be able to give it to you before the meeting. And to me that's a problem because I'd like to have it in your hands, you know, four or five days before the review, But that's just not possible if we're going to include the last payroll
and we're going to include the last round of town checks the town makes. So my question is, how do you as a Board of Finance want to do that? Do you want to get it that day and have to deal with it? Or do you want to hold an additional meeting later? So you have it in hand ahead of time.
Mark, have a really good vacation. Enjoy it. I'll speak for myself. I would like to look at this stuff. I don't have a problem delaying our meeting for a week.
But yeah, I don't Yeah, we we could delay it. I mean, we would have to call a special meeting. Right. You just mean cancel the meeting on the twenty second.
Delay it for a week so we have the time to get the work done, to digest the information so we know what we're doing. I mean, it is what it is. Mean, you know.
I think that's a good idea. We're not, we don't have anything pressing now that the budget has passed. So delaying it to give them time to get it in our hands so that we're not asking a million questions that night. I mean, at first I was leaning towards it would have been fine, but that's a great idea, Diane. There's nothing pressing. Feel okay. I know that's a busy week for me just personally, but it's it probably makes sense. So that it would be on the Wednesday.
So as A long as we week from the twenty second is which is what? Don't have a calendar.
Yeah. The twenty ninth. So I'd be okay for that.
Me just look real quick on the calendar and see what's on the twenty ninth. Just make sure it's not gonna be yeah. There's nothing. There are no meetings listed on the twenty ninth. But want to do that, Eric?
Well, we have to, we can't. Yeah, mean, we'll announce it separately that we assuming that we all agree at that time that we'll cancel the June 22 meeting and then we'll announce a special meeting. It's not actually something that we would decide at this meeting because it's not on the agenda. Therefore, you know, according to regulations, we really cannot be discussing or deciding on something that's not on the agenda on a special meeting. So if everyone's in general agreement, I think it makes sense. I mean, we can certainly talk about it, but actually take the action. This is just an administrative action. I don't think it's like a standard action shouldn't be a big deal.
If everybody's agreed, we'll just plan on doing what we have to do to get that done. Yeah. Do the meeting a week later. Okay. Works for me.
All right. Other discussion? We will move on to item six, which is correspondence. I haven't received any correspondence. I don't know if anybody else has that we would need to present. I have not. Item seven is public speak. Okay. First up would be Kimberly Persaud.
I do have a couple of very specific questions for you based on what I've heard tonight. But what I think I'm going to do is send you an email. And hopefully I'll get an answer from you guys. That's a good way to get I think the discussion that I've heard, it warrants an email. Thank you, guys. Okay. Thank you, Kimberly.
Okay. Up, Kathleen Weigart. Sorry if I mispronounced your name. Okay. Okay, next up, the phone number ending in 2012 nevermind. Sorry. That's so So that does take care of all the members of the public that I know of.
It looks like everybody to me also. Okay, so hearing nothing else, we'll move on to agenda item number eight, which is adjournment. Anybody want to make a motion to adjourn? I'll make a motion to adjourn.
Okay, thank you Louise. Anybody second? Joanne seconds, thank you. Any discussion? Okay, we'll go ahead and take a vote. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any abstentions? Okay, I think I mentioned this in an email but just a reminder I won't be available at the next meeting. I will be on vacation. And also if we hold a special meeting on the twenty ninth I won't be available that week either. I will be in Paris so wish me well. Thank you everybody appreciate your hard work I know it's a tough budget season, but everybody put it together and we work together well I think so. Thank you very much. The meeting is adjourned. Hope you have a great week and we'll talk to you soon. Bye bye. Thank you guys. Bye.