BURTON CITY COUNCIL APPROVES AUDIT PROPOSAL
The Burton City Council moved forward with an audit proposal at Tuesday night’s meeting.
Councilmembers agreed to allow Medack and Oltmann, LLP to perform the annual audit of the fiscal year ending March 31, 2019. The proposal was approved based on the understanding that the firm provides a summary of hours worked in an hourly report.
James Medack and Melodi Oltmann, the certified public accountants out of Giddings, said their team focuses on small government entities and nonprofits, and has done so for about 35 years.
The firm’s rate is $150 an hour to perform an audit. Its anticipated cost to perform the audit is $13,000, which Medack said is based on the number of hours expected to complete the audit start to finish. In this case, that would be 86 hours, more than two weeks of work.
Medack said audits tend to take a lot of time, easily running 40 to 60 hours. He also said roughly 40 percent of the time spent is doing planning and procedures before the actual audit, as required by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.
Medack added that, since the city has not had an audit performed in several years, the firm will need to spend time establishing beginning balances in order to set a point of reference. According to City Secretary Angela Harrington, the city last had an audit done in 2010.
Medack said the firm will likely go back to February or March of 2018 to establish capital assets and fund balances. He said it probably wouldn’t begin working with the city until the first part of May, because the city will need to fill out some information for the firm. In addition, he added the council was merely acting on a bid proposal and not the formal engagement letter, which will be mailed to the city later on.
Also in city council, Mayor David Zajicek announced that work on the bridge on Burton Street had finished ahead of schedule, and TxDOT was working on cleaning up around the area.
Councilmembers also:
- Appointed Councilmember Dale Schwartz to the Washington County Appraisal District Budget Committee for 2019-20.
- Approved a contract from GeoSouthern Energy Partners, LP, for an oil and mineral lease on 2.4 acres on the wastewater treatment plant property.
- Tabled action on post-closure maintenance on the city’s solid waste site owned by Doug Collins. Zajicek said city staff haven’t had the chance to investigate the area thoroughly.
- Authorized the mayor to approve the purchase of extra lights outside city hall, for safety and security. The purchases cannot exceed $1,000.
- Approved an amendment to the unsafe building ordinance set last year, stating that any designated city employee or elected official can be the code compliance officer.
- Granted a variance to an ordinance to allow Charlene Patterson to place a new manufactured home at 12305 East Hickory Street.
- Approved an annual loan regarding Burton State Bank’s financing of a 2018 Chevy Tahoe police vehicle purchased last February.
- Approved closing North Railroad Street between West Texas and Washington Streets for Ranger Day on March 16th.
- Approved an agreement with the state to close a segment of the state highway system for the annual Cotton Gin Festival.