Fullerton City Council voted unanimously to move forward with a forensic auditing company in order to ascertain the city’s financial standing.
Last Tuesday, Fullerton authorized the city manager to execute the necessary service agreements with Grant Thornton Advisors LLC, who will be performing a financial audit and budget analysis for the city.
The professional services agreement follows an issue from a March 17 city council meeting, wherein a review of the budget revealed that $2.9 million was mistakenly deposited into the city’s general fund instead of the successor agency’s fund.
Following the meeting, the city released a statement on March 20 saying that, “No money was lost, missing, or improperly spent.”
Grant Thornton’s audit will be divided into tasks. According to City Manager Eddie Manfro, the audit should reveal at the end of the first task whether or not there was any sign of fraud.
Additionally, auditors will notify the Fiscal Sustainability Committee at any indication of fraud within the city’s finances, who will then notify the city council.
“There was statements made during the Fiscal Sustainability Ad Hoc Committee on reluctancy to trust the numbers in the budget until they have some assurance from Grant Thornton that the numbers that we’ve presented should be supported,” said Deputy City Manager Daisy Perez. “So we’re looking for that sort of validation from them at that point.”
The committee confirmed that they would forward any information from Grant Thornton to both the city council and to the public.