Town Council - Regular Meeting

Is he a graduate when I have that? I don't think he No, I don't think he's No, no. I was He was My son was speaking of you, the person who to me the information, and I said, "No, no, son." All set law school. We are going to do the pledge of allegiance or the flag. Either one. I aliance to the flag

of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible justice for all the sun her faces all red have any announcements she didn't look like that this morning when I talked to her

okay first thing homestead exemption addition to the warrant FY 27 at the annion town meeting held on May 19th6 FM main school. I would like to make a motion to add the proposed homestead exemption ordinance to the warrant for the financial town meeting subject to enactment of the enabling legislation by the general assembly and the signature of the governor. I have a second. Second it. Any further discussion? Are we required to put that in the in the warrant? Yes. Yes.

Any other discussion? Not seeing any. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Not seeing any. Thank you. The recommendation from working group on auditor evaluations. I'll take this time to uh let John McM speak as he kind of led that uh meeting with myself and Anya.

Uh so as you recall, we um issued a RFP Um that was uh bids were due on March 5th. We sent the R&P out in early February. We um had uh anticipated at least three responses. Uh we did get two our existing audit firm Hig Sahadi and the firm called CBiz which is a uh fairly large um firm based out of New York. They've uh produced a number of uh firms around the country, one of which is in Rhode Island which specializes in municipalities. So I think they'll be a good choice. CLA who we had engaged to do some work for us on the 24 audit preparing audit workpapers couldn't get around the uh AICPA dependence issues. we have to be basically out for at least a year before uh they could come in and do any audit uh work for us. So they had to decline to bid uh on the on the audit. So um CBIS uh so the in the evaluations the biz came in on March 5th. Uh we uh met as a committee on Monday uh which was uh Anya, myself, uh Patrick and Bob and we uh prepared a um evaluation which was required by the auditor general in terms of making that selection. Uh the evaluations uh came through with a uh total overall score of um out

of um 300 I guess it would be. Um C biz got 276 and Haha was at 215. Haha was the low bid. their bid uh over the three-year period came to 156,705. CBiz was um over that amount. They came in at 210,500. The um first year uh Sahadi was at 51640. CB biz came in at 675. Uh what we have in the budget for FY26 was um 45,000 on the town side and 15,000 on the school side. So we have $60,000 in the budget. So we're we're above the budget by 7500. My recommendation is that we fund that through the contingency fund uh to to make up that differential. in um 27 I had proposed a budget of 50,000 on the town side and 25 on the school side. So we've got sufficient monies budgeted in uh uh FY27 for year two of the bid. So we're in pretty good shape in that regard. Uh CBiz has uh a fair amount of like I say experience. They're a larger firm. They have um when they the proposals listed the resources they have available, they listed the people that would be on the job.

They also indicated they would be doing uh a lot of the work on site which is a problem we had with the previous uh firm. Uh so I think this is going to be I think a good fit um for us. Um, as you know, in that in the RFP, I did request and and require everybody to have the 25 audit complete by June 30th to 26. So, that would kind of catch us up as far as the audit. So, we completed two audits in uh in this past year. So, 24 has been issued and then 25. So, that would then catch us up. Uh they um they they listed the people that would be on the audit. They looked like they had some uh pretty good skill sets. Uh I worked with the partner on the uh audit before. He was on the audit and um I served on the audit committee in the town of North Kingtown and he was the audit partner on that engagement. So I'd worked with Jim Wilkinson uh over the past years and uh he's he's good quality guy. So, uh, uh, I'm pleased to make the recommendation that we, uh, select CBiz as auditors for the, um, 3-year period ending June 30th of 28 with two one-year options. We should be at our determination.

It doesn't tell you. Any questions for John? I have a question. Um, so you said um that they committed to or you put into the RFP that 2025 would be needs to be done by the end of June. Do you anticipate that 26 would be done by the end of December getting us now back on to on time audits?

Uh, yeah. Yep. Yep. I I'll have all that information my my goal is to have that all all the information done by the end of the summer to which is what we would normally do in the past. So, and uh Sahadi would then usually come in in the September time frame. So, once we get it done, we'll have them uh make sure that they get us onto the schedule. Uh we are new, so they're going they'll have to fit us in the schedule. But I think I think we should be okay. And essentially this calendar year, not fiscal, but calendar year, we will have completed hopefully completed three audits by the end of December. And then once we've done that one at the end of December, then we're back on track.

Yeah. I mean, you run into some issues. Um, I mean, we've got um actuarial reports that we'd need. Uh, although I think we've got uh well, we've got that actuarial have the actuarial and we got the current OPED OPED report. Yeah, the OPED report will have to be done. Uh, it alternates. this year the the one that they just completed is a use last year's data and just update it whereas the next one we do it alternates each each year they have to do that would be for the 27 audit that's for the 27 audit so yeah

okay so we should uh you know I don't anticipate anything that should hold us up in getting that completed great at this point thank you and I will note that we have our order of selection letter. The Rhode Island general order has approved this selection. We have that here. Happy to share that for the record in the minutes. I'm going to make a motion to engage CBIZ for auditing service. I have a second. Second. Further discussion? Not seeing any. All in favor? I I

Thank you. I will uh entertain a motion to adjurnn. Move.