SAN BERNARDINO >> After more than a year of delays and suspicion, an audit of the city’s 2012-13 financial statements should be finished Wednesday and presented to the City Council and public Nov. 2, according to city staffers and the audit firm.
That could answer the question many citizens, including candidates for City Council and treasurer, have lobbed at the city with increasing frequency: Exactly where did money go in the year after the 2012 bankruptcy filing, and how reliable are claims about the spending?
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“In meeting with the city’s auditor, MGO, they have committed to us that they will have the fiscal year 2012-13 financial audit, including the independent auditor’s report on the assurance of whether the financial statements are free of material misstatement and whether they can be relied upon by the readers of those financial statements,” Deputy City Manager Nita McKay said Monday.
The also-overdue audit of fiscal year 2013-14 could be completed after that.
McKay said she would give a more detailed report Nov. 2.
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And she said Wednesday also would be the likely completion date for a separate audit: the so-called single audit that, because of its absence, has led state officials to withhold $125,000 a month in reimbursements for the San Bernardino Employment and Training Agency since October 2014, which city officials hope to recoup once that audit is available.
Auditor Jim Godsey, of Macias, Gini and O’Connell LLP, was much less confident the single audit would be done this week, but he said the financial statement audit likely will be completed by Wednesday.
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Godsey said he’d asked the city for additional information after discovering that its latest response may not have answered all of the audit firm’s questions, which McKay clarified.
“We provided all of the requested information,” said McKay, who supervises the city’s finances under the city manager, during Monday’s council meeting. “Then he (Godsey) said they sent a follow-up on questions that were still outstanding. I just received a follow-up email tonight, at 6:41 p.m., when I’m in this meeting, that they have further follow-up questions.”
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City officials have argued over how much to blame city staff and how much to blame the audit firm since March, when MGO first said it would need to double its initial cost estimate to complete the audit and might not meet a May 30 deadline for the 2013-14 audit (while projecting confidence, at that time, that the 2012-13 audit would be done in May).
Monday’s update is in line with the most recent public discussion of when the 2012-13 audit would be completed, which came after a fiery Oct. 5 meeting during which a scheduled discussion was tabled.
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Some residents remain skeptical.
“I highly doubt this is going to come out before the elections in November,” said (Pu-to) Scott Olson, who opposes all but one of the sitting council members. “Who are they protecting, what are they hiding?”
The next City Council meeting, when McKay said the audits will be presented, falls one day before the Nov. 3 election.