March 22, 2024 |
Photo – Carver, Florek, and James logo – Courtesy Lindekin
The Rawlins city council voted to switch auditing services due to delays in state-required financial reporting.
Wyoming statute 16-4-121 states that every governing body shall produce “an annual audit of the financial affairs and transactions of all funds and activities of the municipality for each fiscal year.”
During the Tuesday Rawlins city council meeting, certified public accounting firm Carver, Florek, and James, out of Layton, Utah, were chosen to perform auditing services for the city.
City Manager Tom Sarvey said every three years, the city is required to review its contracted auditing firm. Sarvey said the city’s current certified public accountants, Atlas CPAs and Advisors, out of Casper, was late completing the legally required 2023 audit.
The city manager said he received three bids from accounting firms interested in performing audits for the city. Carver, Florek, and James comes highly recommended, said Sarvey.
Of the three bids the city received, Mountain States CPAs and Consultants were the highest, at $147,773 for three years’ worth of auditing services. At $136,500, Carver, Florek, and James was not the lowest bid the city received. Atlas CPAs and Advisors undercut the Utah-based auditing firm by $12,000. However, as City Manager Sarvey stated, Atlas was unable to meet the previous fiscal year’s audit deadlines.
In city documents, Sarvey said, “The only concern with the service performed by Atlas CPAs and Advisors was timeliness. Several months would go by with no communication between the firm and the City’s finance office. Completion of the audit was not finished within the time set by state requirements for Fiscal Year 2023. City staff would work diligently on reconciliations in an effort to complete the audit, and it would take months to receive a response from the firm.”
The Rawlins city council unanimously voted to contract with Carver, Florek, and James for the next three fiscal years.
