4 ms·

The city has an independent auditor. It's a mid-sized firm in a sizable metro with a bunch of CPAs. Literally no incentive to lie on an audit of a tiny township

The city has an independent auditor. It's a mid-sized firm in a sizable metro with a bunch of CPAs. Literally no incentive to lie on an audit of a tiny township with a miniscule budget.

michaelt 5y ago
The likes on Enron, Worldcom and Bear Stearns all had "independent" audits. Everyone knows auditors only have the capacity to look at a small sample of records; and that difficult, demanding auditors don't get appointed next year.
somenewaccount1 5y ago
CPA's will only verify that the funds were indeed spent as reported. Basically, that the ledger is balanced and funds weren't outright stolen. They won't identify that specific vendors, possibly related to the supervisors, are over paid for thier services.
- throwawaygh 5y ago
  - cmeacham98 5y ago
    "Interfund transfers": almost 50% increase to $1.3million; elaborated on nowhere else in the budget as far as I can tell Now I'm not saying there definitely is foul play here (realistically, more likely than not there isn't), but that's why the auditor position exists - to find out
  - taylorfinley 5y ago
    Okay. Bottom of page 4, "50 gallon sprayer, $5000" Here's a 50 gallon sprayer from Northern Tool, cost $489. Where'd the other $4500 go? https://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_200722048_200722048 https://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_200722048_20... Edit: let's give them the benefit of the doubt, here's the most expensive one, still coming in $2000 under budget https://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_200675174_200675174 https://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_200675174_20...
    - throwawaygh 5y ago
      ...and there are also sprayers that cost over $7K. Was that money spent on a sprayer? Almost certainly yes. Who could check this? For that, I'm just going to repeat your own words back to you: > CPA's verify that the funds were indeed spent as reported And then ask again what possible incentive the accounting firm could have to lie.
      - sgjohnson 5y ago
        Nobody at all suggested that the accounting firm has lied about anything.
        throwawaygh 5y ago
        So if the accounting firm didn't lie then the funds on the line item for the sprayer were spent on... a sprayer. Someone's gonna get a Pulitzer out of this thread!
        mschuster91 5y ago
        Going for an excessively above-market-price model is waste of taxpayer money. If there have been specific requirements why the standard model would not be sufficient, these exceptions should have been documented.
        throwawaygh 5y ago
        Assuming this money was in fact spent on a sprayer and roughly at market value, "why so fancy?" is a question for the supervisors.
        virgilp 5y ago
        You're being intentionally obtuse here. You didn't prove anywhere that this was the market price, on the contrary, there are good reasons to believe it wasn't. Traditional way corruption works in my country is exactly that: the people who purchase goods using public money make a deal with the vendors, behind close doors: "I'll buy directly from you, and you can inflate your prices, but you kick back 25% to me". So the seller doubles the price, knowing they have no competition, pays 25% in kickbacks, keeps a nice markup (still sold the item 50% more expensive than they would otherwise). An accountant would find absolutely no fault anywhere: there's purchase orders, invoices, receipts, everything matches. They have no idea how much sprayers cost or how much a specific model should cost! An auditor, on the other hand, could ask exactly these sorts of questions (why was this a direct acquisition and not a public auction? what was the benefit of selecting this vendor? why can I find this model available at 1/10th of the price at a reputable retailer?) [edit] Look, I actually agree with your take (what this auditor is doing is sketchy, he is certainly not taking on "the establishment" with his saga, his motives look dubious). But that doesn't make the supervisors innocent. He can be shady, supervisors can be shady - these things are not mutually exclusive. For the life of me I don't understand why you defend the supervisors, contradicting yourself in the process[+] instead of focusing on your actual valid point. Yeah, he should get his auditor position; no, he's not fighting the establishment, he's just trying to gain popularity by creating outrage. [+] first say "find me one suspicious line item" then after several are found, you change the subject or try to pedal theoretically-possible-but-highly-improbable theories ("we can't be 100% certain the price was inflated! What if you found a similar thing at 1/10th of a price, surely that tiny town needed a premium sprayer that had to be very expensive").
Aeolun 5y ago
> miniscule budget $14 million?

The city has an independent auditor. It's a mid-sized firm in a sizable metro with a bunch of CPAs. Literally no incentive to lie on an audit of a tiny township with a miniscule budget.

michaelt 5y ago

The likes on Enron, Worldcom and Bear Stearns all had "independent" audits. Everyone knows auditors only have the capacity to look at a small sample of records; and that difficult, demanding auditors don't get appointed next year.

somenewaccount1 5y ago

CPA's will only verify that the funds were indeed spent as reported. Basically, that the ledger is balanced and funds weren't outright stolen. They won't identify that specific vendors, possibly related to the supervisors, are over paid for thier services.

throwawaygh 5y ago
- cmeacham98 5y ago
  "Interfund transfers": almost 50% increase to $1.3million; elaborated on nowhere else in the budget as far as I can tell Now I'm not saying there definitely is foul play here (realistically, more likely than not there isn't), but that's why the auditor position exists - to find out
- taylorfinley 5y ago
  Okay. Bottom of page 4, "50 gallon sprayer, $5000" Here's a 50 gallon sprayer from Northern Tool, cost $489. Where'd the other $4500 go? https://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_200722048_200722048 https://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_200722048_20... Edit: let's give them the benefit of the doubt, here's the most expensive one, still coming in $2000 under budget https://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_200675174_200675174 https://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_200675174_20...
  - throwawaygh 5y ago
    ...and there are also sprayers that cost over $7K. Was that money spent on a sprayer? Almost certainly yes. Who could check this? For that, I'm just going to repeat your own words back to you: > CPA's verify that the funds were indeed spent as reported And then ask again what possible incentive the accounting firm could have to lie.
    - sgjohnson 5y ago
      Nobody at all suggested that the accounting firm has lied about anything.
      - throwawaygh 5y ago
        So if the accounting firm didn't lie then the funds on the line item for the sprayer were spent on... a sprayer. Someone's gonna get a Pulitzer out of this thread!
        mschuster91 5y ago
        Going for an excessively above-market-price model is waste of taxpayer money. If there have been specific requirements why the standard model would not be sufficient, these exceptions should have been documented.
        throwawaygh 5y ago
        Assuming this money was in fact spent on a sprayer and roughly at market value, "why so fancy?" is a question for the supervisors.
        virgilp 5y ago
        You're being intentionally obtuse here. You didn't prove anywhere that this was the market price, on the contrary, there are good reasons to believe it wasn't. Traditional way corruption works in my country is exactly that: the people who purchase goods using public money make a deal with the vendors, behind close doors: "I'll buy directly from you, and you can inflate your prices, but you kick back 25% to me". So the seller doubles the price, knowing they have no competition, pays 25% in kickbacks, keeps a nice markup (still sold the item 50% more expensive than they would otherwise). An accountant would find absolutely no fault anywhere: there's purchase orders, invoices, receipts, everything matches. They have no idea how much sprayers cost or how much a specific model should cost! An auditor, on the other hand, could ask exactly these sorts of questions (why was this a direct acquisition and not a public auction? what was the benefit of selecting this vendor? why can I find this model available at 1/10th of the price at a reputable retailer?) [edit] Look, I actually agree with your take (what this auditor is doing is sketchy, he is certainly not taking on "the establishment" with his saga, his motives look dubious). But that doesn't make the supervisors innocent. He can be shady, supervisors can be shady - these things are not mutually exclusive. For the life of me I don't understand why you defend the supervisors, contradicting yourself in the process[+] instead of focusing on your actual valid point. Yeah, he should get his auditor position; no, he's not fighting the establishment, he's just trying to gain popularity by creating outrage. [+] first say "find me one suspicious line item" then after several are found, you change the subject or try to pedal theoretically-possible-but-highly-improbable theories ("we can't be 100% certain the price was inflated! What if you found a similar thing at 1/10th of a price, surely that tiny town needed a premium sprayer that had to be very expensive").

Aeolun 5y ago

> miniscule budget $14 million?