The City of Indianola seems to on the straight and narrow path toward audit compliance.
During a special called meeting last Thursday, the Board of Aldermen accepted the completed audit for September 30, 2018 from Brown & Ewing, and the board soon after contracted with another firm to start the 2019 audit.
Mayor Ken Featherstone said at the meeting that he was “elated” at the news and said that it was a long time coming. The city’s last audit was completed for the 2017 fiscal year.
The city’s audit delinquency has caused a number of issues when it comes to applying for and being awarded federal grant money.
At least one major project, the B.B. King sidewalk project, was halted this year due to the audits not being up to date.
Brown & Ewing’s Robert Sulton was present by phone and walked the mayor and aldermen through the report, which apparently had no findings.
Sulton’s firm had been retained to complete the 2018 audit some time ago, but the relationship between Brown & Ewing and the city went south in 2022, and the city fired the firm, with about a quarter of the audit still left undone.
Brown & Ewing held on to the unfinished report and said it would not hand it over, nor the 2017 work papers, until the city paid its invoice.
When the city contracted in late 2023 with Tann, Brown & Russ Co. to start over with the 2018 audit, the new firm informed the city that it could not retrieve the needed documents from Brown & Ewing and that it might be easier and cheaper to allow the previous firm to complete their work.
The city did just that, and Brown & Ewing completed the 2018 audit report this month.
Soon after Sulton was finished with his presentation, City Clerk Angela Goodwin reached out to Scott Hodges with Tann, Brown & Russ Co. by phone, and the board voted to engage once again with that firm, this time to complete the September 30, 2019 audit.
Hodges told the board that once the 2018 audit is issued, his firm would send a letter to Brown & Ewing to ask them for their work papers from the prior year.
“That will probably take a month or so to get that done,” he said. “We’ll start the process of gathering information for 2019 and we’ll move forward from there.”
Hodges said the timeline for completion varies between entities, but he is optimistic, that if the city hands over needed information in a timely manner, that the 2019 audit might be complete mid-year.
“It may take longer, because the period we’re auditing is five years ago,” he said.
Ward 3 Alderman Ruben Woods asked Hodges if his team plans to come to Indianola to do at least some of the work.
“We will have to come there for at least a portion of the work,” Hodges said. “There’s just too much information to be sending back and forth electronically. We will be there on site for some of the work.”
Ward 4 Alderman Marvin Elder made the motion to contract with the new firm. The board voted unanimously to do so.
