REPORT OF THE FINANCE COMMITTEE
APRIL 17, 2019
A meeting of the Finance Committee was held on Wednesday, April 17, 2019, at 7:01 p.m. in the Aldermanic
Chamber.
Mayor Jim Donchess, Chairman, presided.
Members of the Committee present: Alderman Michael B. O’Brien, Vice Chair
Alderwoman-at-Large Shoshanna Kelly
Alderman-at-Large Brandon Michael Laws
Alderman Patricia Klee
Alderman June M. Caron
Alderman Linda Harriott-Gathright
Also in Attendance: Dan Kooken, Purchasing Manager
John Griffin, CFO/Comptroller
Tim Cummings, Director of Economic Development
PUBLIC COMMENT - None
PRESENTATION
Melanson Heath & Company - 2018 Annual Audit and Comprehensive Annual Finance Report (CAFR)
Mayor Donchess
This is Scott McIntire of Melanson Heath and as he usually does, he will brief us on the annual audit.
Scott Melanson Good evening Mr. Mayor and members of the Committee. Thank you very much for the
invitation to come in tonight. As the Mayor said, my name is Scott McIntire, I’m one of the partners at
Melanson Heath & Company and | am here to give you a quick walk-through of our audit process and tell you a
little bit about the process and the results of our work; as well as walk you through some of the highlights in
your comprehensive annual financial report. It is our understanding that at least in your packages you were
provided the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report in excess of 200 pages. | am only going to hit on some
high points in there; accompanied with that was what we in the audit world call a Governance Letter. | am
going to talk about that probably as much as | am about the numbers and that is what | am going to start with.
In essence, what that Governance Letter tells you is it tells you about the results of our audit of your financial
statements. The language in that letter is fairly standard, | like to speak about it a little more basically. The
results of our audit, you know, for your year ended June 30, 2018; were that we found your books and records
to be in good working order. What that means even more specifically is when we came in to do our test work
we found key accounts such as your cash accounts, receivable accounts, long-term debt accounts; all key
accounts were reconciled on a regular and timely basis as a result of the test work that we performed last fall.
As a result of that when it came to assisting and compiling your Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, our
firm did not need to propose any significant audit entries. Basically what that means is your books and records
were in good working order and they are prepared in accordance with Generally Accepted Accounting
Principles. What that means is it takes you to our opinion, which is in your Comprehensive Annual Financial
Report and it goes on for nearly three pages. But to really summarize it very succinctly it means that in our
opinion your financial statements are totally in accordance with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles for
Local Governments here in the United States.
