Audits and grant applications

With budget sessions beginning this week for the Saratoga Town Council, the search continues for an accounting firm to audit Fiscal Year 2019/2020. 

At the April 20 meeting of the governing body, Mayor Creed James stated he had been in contact with several firms since being informed by Carver Florek and James that they would not engage with the Town of Saratoga for a second year.

In similar financial business, the town council discussed two different State Homeland Security Program (SHSP) grants for Town Hall and the Saratoga Police Department.

Still Looking

At the April 6 meeting of the Saratoga Town Council, James informed the rest of the council and the public that he had reached out to Carver Florek and James after the Town of Saratoga had engaged with Stewart Webster.

It was believed by the governing body that Webster, a professor emeritus in accounting at the University of Wyoming’s College of Business, would fill the needs expressed by the accounting firm.

At the February 2 council meeting, James referenced a conversation he had with Jason Lund, a partner at Carver Florek and James. According to the mayor, Lund had stated that the Town of Saratoga would need to hire or contract with a certified public accountant who met Carver Florek and James’ professional standards. In 2019 and 2020, the Town had engaged with James Childress, a certified public accountant from Cheyenne.

That engagement, however, appeared to end in the New Year.

Despite the engagement with Webster, however, the accounting firm which had audited Fiscal Year 2018/2019 stated they were not interested in engaging with the Town for another year. On April 6, James stated he had requested a number of names from Webster to contact to find an accounting firm that would conduct the Fiscal Year 2019/2020 audit.

““I have been in touch with a number of accounting firms. Some of them, our accountant, Stuart Webster, provided names of. Some other names I’ve been dealing with were provided from the county commissioners and one of the accountants I called gave me a couple other names to work with,” said James. “Currently, it looks like most of the firms are going to be very busy during the coming months, so it’ll be hard to get anyone lined out. I do have one firm that is reviewing our past audit and asked for a little more information for their due diligence to see what they might be getting into in terms of time commitment, things of that sort.”

James did not state what firm he was speaking to, but did say that they had reached out to Sammy Flohr, treasurer for the Town of Saratoga.

“Sammy’s working on getting him a little more information there,” James said. “Hopefully we’ll hear something new there.”

Communication Is Key

For the past several months, a number of meetings of the Town’s ancillary boards have had to meet at the Platte Valley Community Center. Councilmember Jon Nelson, since late 2020, was able to return for meetings of the town council but had to join meetings of the Saratoga Airport Advisory Board and the Saratoga-Carbon County Impact Joint Powers Board via videoconference. 

Additionally, while Councilmember D’Ron Campbell is now the representative to the airport advisory board, another board member, Ladd Sanger, lives out-of-state and often joins the meeting via videoconference as well. Those meetings, however, may return to the Saratoga Town Hall.

Marie Christen, clerk for Town of Saratoga, informed the council that she had applied for an SHSP grant for videoconferencing equipment. A quote from Pine Cove Consulting, who handles all of the Town of Saratoga’s information technology (IT) needs, for the equipment came in at $8,862.65.

“I’m hoping that the grant that we applied for will cover it all,” said Christen. “That way we can use it for court, for trainings, for conferences—especially with COVID and everyone spacing out—it’s something we needed here and didn’t have in the past.”

Christen added that she was unsure when the Town would be informed as to whether they received the grant. Nelson asked if the council wanted to wait until the status of the grant was known before making the expenditure. James stated the governing body should wait, unless there was an immediate need for the equipment.

Also applying for an SHSP grant was the Saratoga Police Department. With repeaters beginning to fail during calls and a radio console that is near the end of its life, Chief Ken Lehr stated that the hope was that the grant would be enough to replace both the two failing repeaters and the outdated radio console.

Further discussion between Lehr and Nelson revealed that Saratoga would attempt to apply for the grant along with the Encampment Police Department, who was also in need of a new repeater.

A motion to allow the Saratoga Police Department to submit the SHSP application grant passed unanimously.

The next meeting of the Saratoga Town Council will be at 6 p.m. on May 4 at Saratoga Town Hall.