August 11, 2026 – Audit Committee – Video & Transcript
August 11, 2026 - Audit Committee
All right, so we can call the meeting to order at 512.
I'll take the minutes.
All right, thank you.
And I know previously we've used an AI tool to use the transcript.
Is that enabled?
You know what?
I'm thinking this is a – I did see that the recording was in progress.
Okay, so that means that we're good.
If we want to go that route.
My guess is this is going to be a very simple meeting.
We may not even have to go that route.
Okay, yep.
That sounds good.
Okay.
Yep. Now I'll just review the agenda for the public. Main items for today, we'll be discussing the audit committee deliverables. We'll vote to approve them. We'll vote to approve the agenda. We'll vote to approve the agenda. Then we'll go over the minutes from our last meeting and vote to approve those minutes. Talk about committee reappointments and then any other topics and then adjourn. So I'll open it up to the public if anyone would like to comment. Thank you.
Seeing public comment. Okay. Nobody from the public to comment. Thank you.
First item is the annual report to the select board, which was drafted. I did make an update to the departments being the conservation and – and the building departments that have the largest portions of the remaining balance. And then we have our recommendations here, which are engaging a third party to perform internal control reviews. The existing vacancies in the audit committee and our recommendations for ensuring continuity of the committee. Thank you. An audit related to IT potentially. And then engaging a third party to review some vendor contracts. So any – any comments on this – on these items or on the report? Yeah, does the – does this reflect Brian's – does this reflect Brian's – what is Brian's proposal? input on which departments still have an issue? Does it reflect that correctly?
I believe so.
Brian, you had mentioned this. Conservation and building. Brian, are those the ones that still have issues? They have the accounts that have the most reconciliation. Okay, that's all I wanted to know. That is correct. Still to do. A long way in reconciling their balances. Conservation and building still need a lot of work to do to reconcile their balances. Now, Brian, when Michael does his presentation to the select board making our recommendation that we somehow merge with FinCom, when I was interviewing with them, they reappointed me. I'm getting ahead of myself, but they reappointed me to add I said that that's what we'd be recommending. They were somewhat skeptical. Do you want to give, you know, perhaps on independence issues or conflict of interest issues? Do you just want to alert Michael when he makes that presentation this issue comes up so that he knows where you stand?
I mean, you would have to do a code change to have to change chapter 19 of the town code, changing their authority on what they do. Currently, right now, they're responsible to prepare the town budget, they're responsible to prepare the five year capital budget in the capital budget that goes to town meeting, as well as all the other articles that need to write you know, write ups on. So I think it deserves a larger discussion with the select board and the finance committee if this is something in the warehouse. I know that you guys are struggling to get bodies on your committee. And this is, you know, one way to do that. If it did take that path, I would say maybe appoint two of them from that committee to join the audit committee at their meeting. So you have a full quorum of five. I don't think the finance committee of seven should turn into the audit committee. That's not their wheelhouse. Typically, they don't get involved in financial statements. Their job under the code is to do a budget. Your job under the code is to review the town's financial statements and make recommendations to the selectmen based on, you know, improvements to the town. That currently is not their role. But I think that Michael can make a presentation to that and they can start that discussion. You know what? I think that Michael should talk to you and get more, get well prepared for that issue. When he goes to the select board, he has, you know, he has your full input on that. So I think that's, that's what I would recommend.
Okay.
Sounds good. Okay. So would having the financial committee, the finance committee have two members that also sit on the audit committee be an easy transition? Or does that also involve? I think it would still involve making a code change. But, you know, if you had two people on that committee that were designated to also be on the audit committee to fill, you know, vacancies, I think that would be an easier fix as opposed to turning the finance committee into the finance committee slash audit committee. Okay. Good input. Okay.
Makes sense. I will motion to approve this. Okay. I move that we accept this report as amended.
Okay. I agree. I agree. You can't just leave two? No. Okay. The minutes are going to be. I'm going to say I made the motion and you'd see on second and then three and all in favor.
Okay. That sounds good.
The next item is the annual report for the town. The town publication, which. Has a lot of similar content, also dives into the request for proposal process.
I did see that I think Cbiz got acquired by Grant Thornton, maybe. I think they were just acquired. I did see that too. Yeah. So that's interesting. I think as of the date that this was very, let's see. Very interesting. The idea was that we were. We did receive the proposal from CBS, so whatever happened afterwards, it's still got it. We still got it from CBS. I don't think this needs to be changed. Mm-hmm. Yep. That makes sense.
And then gets into two recommendations here, the third party, and then just the continuity of the committee. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah, so Yuchan, just FYI, I've already submitted my changes to Michael, so I'm ready to go with what he's got here. Yeah, good, so I agree with the changes. Yuchan said he agrees with these changes. Okay, so let's see, then if we're, I mean, I don't want to, are we done on this? I'll make a motion. If not, Michael, do you have anything else to add? No, I'm good with this. Okay, so AR2, Klaus Shigley makes a motion to accept the report. Okay. I need a second. I second. Okay, Michael. I agree. Okay, then we have a 3-0 in favor. All right, done. All right. Next item is the minutes from our last meeting. Yeah, just let me say that I did get the town to give me a transcript. I submitted the transcript to the AI, and then the AI did almost a very good job of creating the minutes based on, well, it did almost a perfect job of creating the minutes. There were some edits that I did, and then there were some edits that Michael did. So again, I'm... I'm ready to accept this as it's written and amended. So Yuchiyan, did you have a chance to look at this and make any changes? Yeah, I do agree. I think it looks perfect for me. Okay, great. Michael, anything else? No, I'm good. Motion to approve. So Michael makes the motion to approve. I second. Okay. Yuchiyan second. I agree. The vote is 3-0. All right. Then the next item is the committee reappointments. Klaus, I know you've been... Yeah, I was asked to show up at the last meeting. I was actually asked to show up when I was at the meeting with the committee. And I'm sorry. I was really sorry. I was a little bit worried. I'm sorry. I have no idea what happened. I have no idea what happened. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. last fincom meeting and uh and then they they asked me a few questions and then um i i i was reappointed um and i know that michael i think is i think you but you were appointed by the by the select board is that correct yeah yes i need to you need to go back to them if you wish to um go go again and then uh you tian i'm i'm hearing that you you were not or would you like to re-up yeah i i will consider okay i mean if i need to call you out i can call you uh but if you have some people with more capable i think uh i might ask another cpa if you if you think she's qualified you you , yeah i i should mention that even though we haven't been reappointed all of us haven't been reappointed it is it is legal for us to to uh to continue as a committee as long as uh you know we haven't as long as there hasn't been somebody else you know appointed to this group so therefore we're we're in good shape now you tian i'm not sure i understood are you are you willing to continue you um i'm not sure i i i have to i have to think of that okay all right fair enough
so if if he if you tian is not going to re-up then we really do need uh another another appointment just to make a quorum and so when you report to the uh select board michael you're going to make a you have to emphasize this uh you're going to have to make a quorum i'm not sure if you're going to make a quorum i'm not sure if you're going to have to make a quorum i'm not sure if you're going that point that was helpful yeah so if we if we can get a couple members then we might not need to discuss about like merging so so michael have you been in touch with the select board to get reappointed um i have not spoken to the select board that's true it was really up to them they dropped the ball they should have they should have picked it up yeah i can i can reach out to them okay so yeah i'll reach out to the select board so so brian um once these reports are well these reports are now approved how do we get this on the select board's uh agenda so that michael can make the presentation um you can send me uh the annual report the one he just did that that can be sent to jaylen um if you don't have jalen's email send it to me michael and then the the report that goes to the select board you can also send to me and i'll send it along to abby
okay so with the select board so if you want you can send me both documents and i'll move them on okay yep all right that sounds good i'll send both of these to you
okay any other topics that anybody would like to discuss hmm you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you
you oh i have one question when i talked to the the finance committee
i said that no i was asked to tell them what our what we did and And then I said, among other things, we reviewed the ACFER, all right? And they said, what's the ACFER? And I was shocked. Does the finance committee not look at the ACFER, Brian? Well, yeah, it's not their responsibility in the code to look at the financials or the management lineup, but they're all posted on the website. So it's not their role under the code to review the town's audit results, the financial statements, or the management lineup. However, all these documents are on the town website. They could look at them at will if they wanted to. All right. Well, that was my question. I was shocked that the finance committee doesn't look at the annual comprehensive financial report.
Anyways, that's all I had. I wanted to clarify that. But that's an area where we clearly have different responsibilities than the FinCom.
Yeah, I would have thought that they would review that, but I didn't know that was out of their scope.
Okay. Well, I will motion. And to adjourn the meeting. Did you just make that motion? Yep. Okay, Michael. Motion. UTM just second. Okay, UTM to adjourn. All right.
All right.
Good to see you guys again. Thank you. Enjoy the summer. What's left? All right. Take care. Good job, Michael.
Yep. Now I'll just review the agenda for the public. Main items for today, we'll be discussing the audit committee deliverables. We'll vote to approve them. We'll vote to approve the agenda. We'll vote to approve the agenda. Then we'll go over the minutes from our last meeting and vote to approve those minutes. Talk about committee reappointments and then any other topics and then adjourn. So I'll open it up to the public if anyone would like to comment. Thank you.
Seeing public comment. Okay. Nobody from the public to comment. Thank you.
First item is the annual report to the select board, which was drafted. I did make an update to the departments being the conservation and – and the building departments that have the largest portions of the remaining balance. And then we have our recommendations here, which are engaging a third party to perform internal control reviews. The existing vacancies in the audit committee and our recommendations for ensuring continuity of the committee. Thank you. An audit related to IT potentially. And then engaging a third party to review some vendor contracts. So any – any comments on this – on these items or on the report? Yeah, does the – does this reflect Brian's – does this reflect Brian's – what is Brian's proposal? input on which departments still have an issue? Does it reflect that correctly?
I believe so.
Brian, you had mentioned this. Conservation and building. Brian, are those the ones that still have issues? They have the accounts that have the most reconciliation. Okay, that's all I wanted to know. That is correct. Still to do. A long way in reconciling their balances. Conservation and building still need a lot of work to do to reconcile their balances. Now, Brian, when Michael does his presentation to the select board making our recommendation that we somehow merge with FinCom, when I was interviewing with them, they reappointed me. I'm getting ahead of myself, but they reappointed me to add I said that that's what we'd be recommending. They were somewhat skeptical. Do you want to give, you know, perhaps on independence issues or conflict of interest issues? Do you just want to alert Michael when he makes that presentation this issue comes up so that he knows where you stand?
I mean, you would have to do a code change to have to change chapter 19 of the town code, changing their authority on what they do. Currently, right now, they're responsible to prepare the town budget, they're responsible to prepare the five year capital budget in the capital budget that goes to town meeting, as well as all the other articles that need to write you know, write ups on. So I think it deserves a larger discussion with the select board and the finance committee if this is something in the warehouse. I know that you guys are struggling to get bodies on your committee. And this is, you know, one way to do that. If it did take that path, I would say maybe appoint two of them from that committee to join the audit committee at their meeting. So you have a full quorum of five. I don't think the finance committee of seven should turn into the audit committee. That's not their wheelhouse. Typically, they don't get involved in financial statements. Their job under the code is to do a budget. Your job under the code is to review the town's financial statements and make recommendations to the selectmen based on, you know, improvements to the town. That currently is not their role. But I think that Michael can make a presentation to that and they can start that discussion. You know what? I think that Michael should talk to you and get more, get well prepared for that issue. When he goes to the select board, he has, you know, he has your full input on that. So I think that's, that's what I would recommend.
Okay.
Sounds good. Okay. So would having the financial committee, the finance committee have two members that also sit on the audit committee be an easy transition? Or does that also involve? I think it would still involve making a code change. But, you know, if you had two people on that committee that were designated to also be on the audit committee to fill, you know, vacancies, I think that would be an easier fix as opposed to turning the finance committee into the finance committee slash audit committee. Okay. Good input. Okay.
Makes sense. I will motion to approve this. Okay. I move that we accept this report as amended.
Okay. I agree. I agree. You can't just leave two? No. Okay. The minutes are going to be. I'm going to say I made the motion and you'd see on second and then three and all in favor.
Okay. That sounds good.
The next item is the annual report for the town. The town publication, which. Has a lot of similar content, also dives into the request for proposal process.
I did see that I think Cbiz got acquired by Grant Thornton, maybe. I think they were just acquired. I did see that too. Yeah. So that's interesting. I think as of the date that this was very, let's see. Very interesting. The idea was that we were. We did receive the proposal from CBS, so whatever happened afterwards, it's still got it. We still got it from CBS. I don't think this needs to be changed. Mm-hmm. Yep. That makes sense.
And then gets into two recommendations here, the third party, and then just the continuity of the committee. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah, so Yuchan, just FYI, I've already submitted my changes to Michael, so I'm ready to go with what he's got here. Yeah, good, so I agree with the changes. Yuchan said he agrees with these changes. Okay, so let's see, then if we're, I mean, I don't want to, are we done on this? I'll make a motion. If not, Michael, do you have anything else to add? No, I'm good with this. Okay, so AR2, Klaus Shigley makes a motion to accept the report. Okay. I need a second. I second. Okay, Michael. I agree. Okay, then we have a 3-0 in favor. All right, done. All right. Next item is the minutes from our last meeting. Yeah, just let me say that I did get the town to give me a transcript. I submitted the transcript to the AI, and then the AI did almost a very good job of creating the minutes based on, well, it did almost a perfect job of creating the minutes. There were some edits that I did, and then there were some edits that Michael did. So again, I'm... I'm ready to accept this as it's written and amended. So Yuchiyan, did you have a chance to look at this and make any changes? Yeah, I do agree. I think it looks perfect for me. Okay, great. Michael, anything else? No, I'm good. Motion to approve. So Michael makes the motion to approve. I second. Okay. Yuchiyan second. I agree. The vote is 3-0. All right. Then the next item is the committee reappointments. Klaus, I know you've been... Yeah, I was asked to show up at the last meeting. I was actually asked to show up when I was at the meeting with the committee. And I'm sorry. I was really sorry. I was a little bit worried. I'm sorry. I have no idea what happened. I have no idea what happened. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. last fincom meeting and uh and then they they asked me a few questions and then um i i i was reappointed um and i know that michael i think is i think you but you were appointed by the by the select board is that correct yeah yes i need to you need to go back to them if you wish to um go go again and then uh you tian i'm i'm hearing that you you were not or would you like to re-up yeah i i will consider okay i mean if i need to call you out i can call you uh but if you have some people with more capable i think uh i might ask another cpa if you if you think she's qualified you you , yeah i i should mention that even though we haven't been reappointed all of us haven't been reappointed it is it is legal for us to to uh to continue as a committee as long as uh you know we haven't as long as there hasn't been somebody else you know appointed to this group so therefore we're we're in good shape now you tian i'm not sure i understood are you are you willing to continue you um i'm not sure i i i have to i have to think of that okay all right fair enough
so if if he if you tian is not going to re-up then we really do need uh another another appointment just to make a quorum and so when you report to the uh select board michael you're going to make a you have to emphasize this uh you're going to have to make a quorum i'm not sure if you're going to make a quorum i'm not sure if you're going to have to make a quorum i'm not sure if you're going that point that was helpful yeah so if we if we can get a couple members then we might not need to discuss about like merging so so michael have you been in touch with the select board to get reappointed um i have not spoken to the select board that's true it was really up to them they dropped the ball they should have they should have picked it up yeah i can i can reach out to them okay so yeah i'll reach out to the select board so so brian um once these reports are well these reports are now approved how do we get this on the select board's uh agenda so that michael can make the presentation um you can send me uh the annual report the one he just did that that can be sent to jaylen um if you don't have jalen's email send it to me michael and then the the report that goes to the select board you can also send to me and i'll send it along to abby
okay so with the select board so if you want you can send me both documents and i'll move them on okay yep all right that sounds good i'll send both of these to you
okay any other topics that anybody would like to discuss hmm you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you
you oh i have one question when i talked to the the finance committee
i said that no i was asked to tell them what our what we did and And then I said, among other things, we reviewed the ACFER, all right? And they said, what's the ACFER? And I was shocked. Does the finance committee not look at the ACFER, Brian? Well, yeah, it's not their responsibility in the code to look at the financials or the management lineup, but they're all posted on the website. So it's not their role under the code to review the town's audit results, the financial statements, or the management lineup. However, all these documents are on the town website. They could look at them at will if they wanted to. All right. Well, that was my question. I was shocked that the finance committee doesn't look at the annual comprehensive financial report.
Anyways, that's all I had. I wanted to clarify that. But that's an area where we clearly have different responsibilities than the FinCom.
Yeah, I would have thought that they would review that, but I didn't know that was out of their scope.
Okay. Well, I will motion. And to adjourn the meeting. Did you just make that motion? Yep. Okay, Michael. Motion. UTM just second. Okay, UTM to adjourn. All right.
All right.
Good to see you guys again. Thank you. Enjoy the summer. What's left? All right. Take care. Good job, Michael.