The Tiburon Town Council has approved a $195,000 accounting contract to help the town catch up on its belated financial audits.
Tiburon is two years behind on its audits, needing to submit them for fiscal years 2023-2024 and 2024-2025.
“The delayed audits are the direct result of significant staffing challenges the Town experienced in its Administrative Services Department from 2021 through 2024,” Town Manager Greg Chanis wrote in an email.
The lack of staffing left the town relying entirely on outside contract help to complete audits while its own administration staff handled day-to-day work, according to Chanis. Staffing has since stabilized.
During the council’s budget approval meeting in June, the council asked staff to provide more consistent reports on the town’s audits and overall financial status. The budget and finance committee, consisting of Mayor Jon Welner and Vice Mayor Isaac Nikfar, also met with town staff over the summer to review concerns raised by the council about financial clarity.
On Wednesday, Chanis provided the council with an update on its audit process and requested approval for a contract with the accounting firm Rogers Anderson Malody & Scott LLP to aid in the audit. The council approved it unanimously.
The town previously paid the firm an initial contract fee of $55,000 to launch the “discovery” portion of the work, meet with the town staff and assess the status of the audits. The firm also put together an initial audit timeline for the town.
Tiburon expects to complete its fiscal year 2023-2024 audit by the end of October, the 2024-2025 audit by the end of March and the 2025-2026 by June or July. Chanis said staff will continue to work to shorten the timeline.
Councilmember Jack Ryan asked the town to prioritize accelerating one portion of the auditing process.
“My only recommendation would be that we get somebody to just validate that the amounts that we say we have in our bank account are in the bank account,” said Ryan. “That’s 80% of what a good audit will do.”
Nikfar also reiterated the need for additional reporting on the town’s finances overall.
“Our revenue has grown substantially over the last 10 years, but our costs have also grown substantially over the past 10 years, so I think it’s really important for us, especially as the dollars get bigger and bigger and bigger, for us to understand what is coming in and going out on a very, very regular basis,” Nikfar said.
Staff plan to bring more financial reporting to the council on a monthly basis starting at the Aug. 19 meeting. Reports will include a monthly revenue report, monthly expense report, a summary of investments and a 10-year revenue and expense report.