After telling The Dispatch last week that Watkins, Ward and Stafford believed finishing the Fiscal Year 2021 audit within 30 days was “realistic,” Mayor Keith Gaskin said Wednesday the timeline is no longer as certain.

Wanda Holley, the firm CPA leading the audit, insists she never gave Gaskin that timeline in the first place.

“I read in Friday’s paper that we said 30 days,” Holley said Wednesday, referring to a Dispatch article published after the city council’s most recent work session. “I called the mayor and told him I never said that.”

The completed audit is needed to potentially lower the interest rate for up to $3 million in bonds the city intends to issue for a parks improvement project, which centers on Propst Park. CFO Jim Brigham estimated the city could pay as much as $1 million in interest and fees on the loan.

However, representatives with Madison-based Government Consultants, which is advising the city on the bonds, said both the completed audit and solid bids for the work can help the city borrow the most accurate amount at the best possible interest rate.

Despite that advice, the council voted Tuesday to move forward with borrowing the money, with plans to adopt the formal bond documents Aug. 15 and have the money in hand by Oct. 31.

Gaskin, during a press conference Wednesday at City Hall, called those time stamps “fluid,” in part because the ongoing audit has hit some snags.

“A 30-day window is not an absolute,” Gaskin said of the audit. “As they are working on these audits, there are several things that can come up along the way, so it may not be finished (by the end of August). … They are shooting to get it done as quickly as possible, but we just don’t know when that will be done for sure.”

Both Gaskin and Holley acknowledged some of the information the city has submitted to auditors for that fiscal year is incorrect or incomplete.

For example, Brigham said the city is still working on reports for fixed assets and depreciation, as well as accurately documenting federal grant programs from which it received funds.

Another example is the city’s compliance questionnaire for 2021, which the state requires to be completed and approved by Sept. 30 each year, wasn’t approved until Tuesday, nearly two years late.

The standard questionnaire asks yes or no questions regarding whether the city is following various state laws — from general laws like holding open meetings, handling cash, purchasing/receiving, bonded debt and taxes.

“You realize, in September 2021 I had been in office for three months, so I had never heard of this,” Gaskin said during the press conference. “I was not familiar with this until they brought it to my attention recently. So I think somehow it was overlooked.”

The council did approve the questionnaire timely in 2022, Gaskin later told The Dispatch, and it is slated to be approved next month for 2023.

Gaskin pointed out the end of FY 2021 and the first several months of FY 2022 were a transition period for the city — former CFO Deliah Vaughn resigned in mid September and other key spots were vacant at City Hall for several months.

“That was around the time our CFO at the time was leaving for a new job, and we had an interim COO,” Gaskin said “… There have been a couple of other things they had asked for that Jim (Brigham) would have to go back and look again for something that was missing.

“I think it’s understandable to say we’re still trying to get everything they need in a timely fashion,” he added.

These audit complications come on the heels of a FY 2020 audit that took nearly 2 1/2 years to complete. When it was finally presented in February, it showed the city had overspent its budget by $3.2 million, as well as revealed multiple deficiencies in city accounting practices.

While Holley did not give The Dispatch a firm timeline for the 2021 audit’s completion, she said she understood time is of the essence.

“We’re trying our best and are working as fast as we can,” she said.

Budget calendar
City administration will begin budget workshops with department heads Thursday as one of the first steps in crafting a Fiscal Year 2023 budget, Gaskin said.

A public hearing on the mill rate for ad valorem taxes will be at 5 p.m. Aug. 22 in City Hall, and the council will likely approve the budget Sept. 5.

“We don’t foresee an increase in the mill (rate) for this year’s budget,” Gaskin said.

Zack Plair is the managing editor for The Dispatch.

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