001public. Oh, there's Cassie. All right, we should have everybody mixed. So, meeting's yours to go ahead and get rolling. All right. Can everyone hear me? Yep. Yep. Well, I don't know why I don't have a camera. I apologize. Uh, I call this special meeting to order. Could we get a roll call? Here. Bates here. Kimrell here. Patterson present. Rester Holtz here. Okay. Motion approved. Uh uh approval of agenda. I' I'd ask for a motion to amend the agenda to add action item 4B to approve hire of Chief Financial Officer David Curitar. And uh can I have a motion? So moved. A second. Second. Roll call. I I Kimbell I Patterson I wrestler Holtz I Okay, motion is approved. Um okay, we're on to a discussion information reviewed. I'm sorry. We need the agenda approved. Oh,
002motion to approve the agenda. So moved. Second. Second. Second. All right. Roll call. Hi. Gates. I. Kimbell. I. Patterson. Hi. Restor Holtz. Hi. All right. Motion carries. Thank you. Okay. Now down to item three. Discussion information. Review for forensic audit proposal. from Ed Bailey, BDO USA LLP, and Ruben Brown. Open up the open this up for discussion. Has everyone had a chance to review these various proposals? Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. Yes. Uh there's a pretty pretty good price variation here. Uh Erin, you've been very involved in this. Have you got any feedback? Yes. Hold on one second. Um while while we're waiting for Erin, um one of the things I appreciated and um you know, we can go through price differentiation and and everything, I wrote it all down in my notes so I could
003have it in a spreadsheet. But um one of the things I I really appreciate that um fly he was from BDO u but I think his message is good regardless of of which company we wind up going with. Um he he he recommended that whoever, you know, when we're we're going through this process that we have um an independent party who is outside of district management um you know staff really kind of managing the the project of the forensic audit um to prevent any conflicts of interest or perceived conflicts of interest. Um, and I think that's something we're we should seriously consider. Um, which whichever company we wind up ultimately disping. Um, I think that's that's something that will help keep things moving smoothly. Maybe it's bringing in a a specific project manager to work
004on this. um so if they don't have anything else on their plate or what it might be but um I do think we should have somebody third party who can help facilitate bringing that information to the forensic team but who is not employed by the district long term to avoid a conflict of interest. Well I I have a question perceived conflict of interest. I have I have I didn't hear what somebody else said was I I have a question that I'd like to ask in regard to uh Keegan's suggestion. Uh isn't the independent uh forensic auditor what um why aren't they the disinterested party other than they're going to do provide the work? what how would that contribute to it? Help me understand that or help the public understand it as well. Yeah. So, it's
005it's my understanding that there is a still a decent portion of this process that the district itself is responsible for uh helping carry out. So, gathering the information, providing it to the forensic audit team, um being in communication with them, setting up meetings, that kind of thing. Um and and the suggestion here was to make sure that it was somebody outside of um normal district employees so that you know you couldn't claim or you know there couldn't this instance couldn't happen where someone's dragging their feet or or making it more difficult to get the information to the forensic team in an effort to cover it up. So it would prevent that from happening and also prevent it from being a perceived issue. Okay. There's a cover up, right? What was that? That's assuming there's a
006cover up. Um, well, that's why I that's why I also throw in the perceived part. I'm not saying there is a cover up, but you know, I think part of the reason we're going through this is to prove one way or the other, you know, prove that there isn't any issue, right? um you know for for the people on the team who have been saying that there's you know there's nothing wrong with the way the money has been spent it's you know maybe there was accounting uh clerical issues because of the turnover in staff you know the money went to the right places there's no fraud um we're you know for that for that group we're going through this to prove that there isn't and so to make sure that whatever answers come out of
007this nobody can say yeah but that that that would be a good idea. I mean, have any of you guys actually spoken about how much like if we even have the funding for this? Because I have and we don't have the money for this at all. And you know, that's a concern. And we're always talking about like we need to wait until our books are more balanced to spend money. And it's a lot of money on top of the superintendent search. That's true. I was just going to ask what the additional cost would be to it and what would the additional cost be and then also can't the board have overseers on it? uh maybe to appoint we could appoint two board members to oversee or just be the liaison with the auditing company that
008we choose and if they have any concerns they can immediately report it to the board of education. Would that do provide the same oversight because the board would be one you know an arms length away from it. think that could work. Um, to go back to Cassy's concern over whether we should do this at all, that's one of the reasons I voted no on the budget last week was because this was not included in the budget and it was something we had been discussing needing to do. Um, having had a conversation with Aaron, I think there is some wiggle room, maybe not as much as as we would like to be able to afford this even though it wasn't specifically budgeted for. Um, and and Erin can probably chime in there with the with the
009details on that one. Um, but that was my understanding that we have the funding. It was not in the budget, but that we do have the funding to cover this. Well, well, that would have been a good thing to talk about. You um Barkley and Russell Holtz were not on the tour of our facilities, which we're looking at probably over 20 million um in repairs, especially with a lot of the HVAC equipment. Um, they could probably push back some of the carpeting, but we have a lot of issues with not having AC, not having proper heating, needing some of these boiler issues are boiler issues at many of the schools, Summit, uh, Merit, the high school, and and those are those are high dollar items, and you know, they're all 35 plus years old with
010a life expectancy of 25 years. So this this is definitely a factor these boilers but with also having to budget all that in as well. I'm not saying that there shouldn't be a forensic audit. It's I worry more about this next audit and then having budgeting and doing it while we had our previous uh CFO and some of the worry because that was a whole new team versus some of the people that was very they were already working and doing a lot of the finan financial and accounting prior to when they left. So, this last year uh would be more of a concern as well. That's funny, Kathy. Aaron said the same thing that we shouldn't do or you know we should consider maybe not doing a financial audit for this year that we had
011so much so many red flags on because this next year might be worse. Um I would say that the issues that were raised in this last one and the outcry from the public kind of necessitates that we do this now. And if it turns out there are even more issues next year, well, you know, maybe that's something we need to look at next year as well. But I don't think the right answer is to ignore the issues that came up the prior year out of fear that there might be even more potential for fraud in the coming audit. I think we need to move forward with this audit. Yeah. Can I can I add a little color to to this comment, please? Yep. Um, so my concerns around the 25 and why I suggested waiting
012to see how the 25 audit came out rather than 24 was we just identified these issues back in was it February or March when that report uh came out. We have not we've done some mitigation work, not a lot. So, what we're looking at is FY25 will have some of the same uh concerns from a process perspective as 24 did. And with the previous CFO and the way that things were handled, there may be even more. And so, all that to say, we know that there were some concerns in 24 based off of the way that this audit was done. There was just opportunity there. um we're going to see similar issues in 25. And so my my thought is if we hit 25, we can see what issues there are continuing from 24 and
013anything that may have opened up under the previous CFO that we weren't aware of. and then we can kind of hit it all at once rather than going to 24 seeing that 25 come came out having similar issues and more and saying oh that's a lot of red flags too we need to do both and so my thought is we'd be able to effectively have an audit of the opportunity the same opportunities that were available in 24 from the 25 audit um if that makes sense it would also give us time to budget so I don't know if you guys all got that email and I thought it was an interesting idea about um updating on our website perhaps showing a progress to our actions what the barriers are how we're changing some of the
014systems in place that Courtney's put in as well as the new CFO to Yes, that's a that's a good idea a progress report on the current issues. When did you send that email? I didn't see that. Um, that was sent to all of us June 16th and then re or actually it was sent to us March 17th and then resent to all of us June 16th. not to the administration, but talking about with the volume of issues found in the audit, maybe having um a progress report almost to resolve them to report to the community showing what has been done and what ownerships and what's been in place. So, for instance, somebody someone else sent this email. It wasn't you. No, not not me. It was a community member. And I thought that was an
015interesting idea as well even in correlation of um just sort of showing like what actions are being taken place while they are working on the new audit this summer as well as going into the fall. Well, I mean it's definitely a trans a transparency issue which is a good thing. So, we talked about this internally um with the uh with our admin team and with Lindsay and it was something that we wanted to pursue but at the end coming kind of at the end of the year with everything we didn't have time to pull it together and Lindsay's out of the state and so it's something that we were looking to address once she was back in July now that things have settled down but we just haven't had a time to to build that
016out. she's our website person and so um it's on the the list of things for us to look at. We just didn't have time to do it at the end of the year. Yeah, I haven't spoke to you just to go back to I'm sorry Cassie just to go back to um on like we so there was already we already had an audit of the FY24, right? So we know where the potential issues are. So to wait to see if those potential issues are still issues in FY25, I don't think helps us because we're not looking for where there's potential for issues. We're looking to doublech checkck those potentials that have already been identified in FY24 and dig in deeper and say, okay, was this just, you know, bad documentation or was there fraud there?
017So waiting to see if there is still those gaps in FY25 doesn't help us eliminate the possibility that actual fraud happened in FY24. So that's why I don't want to wait. I understand some of those issues could still be rolling over because they they hadn't been called out and they weren't addressed prior to the start of FY25, but I still think the actual issue we need to address is is that just poor documentation or was there fraud? And that's what that's kind of what we're what the purpose of this forensic audit is. That's what the people have been have been calling for. And that that is what I think it is our duty to actually move forward with this to make sure we can definitively say one way or the other. Was there fraud or
018was it just bad documentation? So let me on my side I hear what you're saying Keegan I understand where you're coming from. Um, my thoughts on this are if we're going to say that this is the level that needs to be investigated with a forensic audit and so we go ahead and move forward with FY24, we already know we're going to assume we're going to meet that same threshold for FY25 because those issues we did not have a chance to resolve a lot of those because of how late all that information came out, which means we'd be looking at doing already committing to doing a forensic audit for FY25 as well. And so we're effectively looking to handle two of these because we've already mattered like matched up what the threshold is for conducting a
019forensic audit based off of auditor reports. I don't know if that's necessarily true. I mean if this forensic audit comes back and says no, there wasn't any actual fraud, it was just misdocumentation, then I don't think that means we would necessarily need to do another forensic audit for FY25 um if it were the same issues. that there are different red flags then that's a conversation but I I still like because even if those those same issues are there in FY25 and we decide to forgo a forensic audit for FY24 um the the a clean forensic audit of FY25 does not guarantee that FY24 was fraud-free so there would still be that possibility hanging for us that you know if we want to move past it I think we need to actually examine FY24. That's fine.
020I just want to be cognizant of if that's what we're doing that there is from what I'm hearing a high potential we'd be looking at doing a forensic audit FY25 as well. And as tight as we are in trying to come up with the funds to to make this happen here, which we can do once, we won't be able to do twice unless you start pulling from the reserve funds, which if that's what the board intends to do or wants to do to make this audit process, you know, accommodate all the forensic audit processes. I'm saying that plural because whether it's one forensic audit or two, but then if we start adding the project manager, like you said, like we don't have it in the budget to be able to manage a project manager. I'm
021guessing it's going to be around the $12,000 mark. 12 to 15,000 to manage this for a few months. Um because it's not like it's going to be a monthsl long process. This isn't like a a weeksl long process, right? I think Sorry. Go ahead. I was going to say, so when we're talking about I think 35,000 was the minimum um coming in from the the forensic audit proposals we had, then we're adding in an extra 12 to 15,000 to have this project manager as an independent person. Like we we proposed a budget last week that had $70,000 into the black. uh you allocated 15,000 of that 70 already to hire um Grunmire for the superintendent search and so now with this 35,000 that's 50 if we do another 12 to 15 for the project manager
022we're talking 65 that's $70,000 that's already been allocated and we haven't even gotten into the fiscal year at this point and so when we're starting to talk you know any additional overages in the audit process if we're not expecting like last year we think we'll we're planning to have everything on, you know, set up and ready to go that we'll get through the audit process cleanly. Um, if things happen, we have to come up with another like we're we're already looking at having a draw down on reserve funds like just based off of what um we're looking at doing with the superintendent search, the forensic audit processes around that, we've effectively eaten up all of the the overage that we had already allocated in that budget. And so I just want to to put that
023out there that and Erin that doesn't even include what might happen or break or any of the other repairs. I don't think $250,000 is going to be enough in our fund 43 after doing the tour. Aaron, when when would this second I mean, if if we did your proposal, when would the forensic audit begin with what what you're proposing? So, we'd have to talk to the different firms because I don't know how quickly they could get us in. Uh, with current staffing um levels that we're at, with the end of year that we're working on, the annual audit, etc. that's happening currently. Uh we would propose not starting this until probably October would be our our preferred timeline. Um so you're only talking about July, August, September, starting it in October. So starting the forensic
024audit in three and a half months. That would be our preferred timeline just based off of the current staffing situation, the strain that our staff's under. uh with everything we have going on at this at this moment. Yeah, I'm not sure. It's only three and a half months. We would still People want to have a forensic audit. I think everyone on the board wants to have a forensic audit. What significance does it make waiting three and a half months on this and I I'm just curious what Keegan says. Well, it's workload. Hey Aaron, so when do you think you think our audit for this upcoming year will be done by the October time? No, I think we're going to be closer to December before the 25 audits done and we actually have that ready to
025go. So this if we go with the if you look at the 25 audit, it would push it into next calendar year. Oh, I thought you said October. October would be if we just move forward with a FY24 audit right now. That would be the um if we're doing the FY25, it would push it out, like I said, probably until January or so. So, I'm gonna play a devil's advocate here again for a minute. No, don't advocate for him. and and uh and just say for lack of a better term there uh David um if this board decides not to move forward with an forensic audit for FY24 what I see as people's response to that is oh they definitely have something to hide and the other board members whose positions are up don't want
026this information coming out prior to the election and so they're pushing it off until elections happen and I think it will just feed the fire of of the disgruntled in the community. It's the case but it's not a which I think you know everyone would know that but I don't think it's a political thing. I think it's really a strain on the district, the work power and even voting. You're looking at six months. So, if you're like, "Okay, let's vote. Let's sign them. Let's make sure that we have the money for, let's say, starting in January. We're still moving forward with it." Yeah. But the information wouldn't be out until after the election. So, that would be the problem. Um, the timelines that the firms, the auditing firms gave us. So Eddie Bailey said the
027whole process would take 120 to 150 days. Um Ruben Brown said six weeks. Um I think BDO is the longest. They said they said five months already Bailey might be but so you know there's there's varying degrees of length. Obviously there is a well five months would be closer to the election and if not after if they got it done. So either way, it I you know, I don't think we need to be basing our decision on that, but really looking at the financials. I don't know if you guys received the packet. I think you guys both need to go on the tour with Jason to really see some of the work that needs to be done and for our teachers because we need to not only budget some of those repairs as well as
028this forensic audit. Yeah. So that's where I get frustrated with our budget too, right? If we know already we have these repairs that need to be done, why didn't we budget for that in the budget? We just this board just approved th this these repairs have been a decade to 15 years pushed down the road. So it's not just just this board and my question to Erin is I knew about it why I wasn't on the board before. Why? Well, you well, you need to get the packet, Keegan. And we need $14 million of repairs that should have been done over the last 20 years, which haven't been done, which were laid in our laps. But my question to you, Erin, is when or what is our c current uh finance department doing to um
029work with the auditors and the department of education or wherever this is coming from to to work on the deficiencies to to clear this up? Are you talking about from a facilities perspective? Yes. from our audit. Uh, we got deficiencies and isn't it isn't our uh wasn't Courtney working? I mean, the deficiencies are are outlined. Is that correct? Yeah, the deficiencies are outlined and most of those are are process and policy related as far as how things get implemented. We've already put in u if you remember, we talked a couple months ago that we reorganized the way that the business department was kind of structured. And so a lot of that put in better uh segregation of duties so that we have different people involved to different parts of the process so that there prevents
030you know you're getting two and three sets of eyes on everything instead of just having one person being able to make a transaction and book it and record it and and deposit money etc. And so those are t the types of things that are in there. There's still some policy work that we have to get done that that we just haven't had time with um the budget season going through that we'll be moving into that shortly. Um trying to capitalize on having both David and Courtney inhouse um for the next couple months while Courtney's still working with us so that we can have Courtney doing some of the audit work uh and then David can do some of the audit work but also some of the policy work. But um those are the things that
031are being addressed. Um, going back to the budget and the facility side that that Keegan brought up, the reality is we trimmed a lot of positions to get this budget to $70,000. We took money away from capital to make an even budget with our current uh financial situation. Losing the the sales tax dollars was a huge blow to our budget and trying to make sure that we still had a balanced budget moving into this year. We had to cut it from somewhere. And so it got cut from capital because that's we have to have teachers in the the buildings. We have to have administrators in the buildings. There's things that we are obligated to have. We have to have transport. Well, we don't have to have transportation. If you guys wanted to cut busing, we
032could do that. Um but there like those are the things that we'd be looking at trying to to take away to add additional dollars to to the capital to address some of these issues. The other option we have is to pull from our um reserve funds and just allocate, you know, a million dollars or whatever it is to go there. But, you know, we're I don't number off the top head, but you know, we're okay right now, but we can't just dip into there often to manu to handle some of these repairs. uh one of these, you know, some of these onetime repairs we could do, but we have to be really careful that we don't we don't get in the habit of pulling from our reserves to to handle capital projects. We have to
033just like at a house, you have to kind of save up and make the purchases when they come and it's going to take us a long time with our current budget situations. We've got to look at other ways trying to be able to fund this. One of those last year we Hold on, if you can one second. Um there's couple grants like the best grant out there which we've talked about before. It's a match grant. And so even if we can utilize that to fix some of the issues, we still have to have 50 40 to 50% minimum for us to be able to do that. And so as nice as it is to say we need to make sure that these dollars are in the budget so we can fix things that this is
034a zero someum type of thing. If every dollar that we allocate we have to create from somewhere. And so at at what point do we start cutting additional positions, teachers, administrators, uh do we cut transportation, etc. to handle those? Those are the types of decisions um we're going to have to get to. But we're at a close to bare minimum as far as like teaching staff at each of our buildings to be able to make this budget work the way that it is right now. Right. And in in reference to the election, we we don't h have the control. My my objective is for the teachers and the students in the buildings. We've got like $30 million in in in back repairs that are are are urgent to do. Um $14 million at the high
035school, right? But we didn't we didn't budget for that. And part of the reason we lost the sales tax is because the community lost trust that our spending wasn't full of fraud. So to say we didn't do a forensic audit because we can't afford to make these repairs that we didn't budget for it because we lost the money because people don't trust that we are spending the money properly. It's just a cycle. It won't get better until we can prove we are spending the money responsibly. the the we lost the sales tax because the city council acted on their own. The people voted to keep the sales tax and if it would have went back on the ballot, they would have passed it again. So, it's totally I don't know if that's true, but there
036was definitely a lot of calls from the public. We were spending it responsibly. The same people are calling for a forensic audit now. So, for us to turn around and say we're not going to do it, I mean, how are you going to go talk to the to the people of this town? How do you do that? $3.2 million is not even a drop in the bucket to the repairs that was laid on this board, right? So, so to spend 35,000 to prove to the community that we are trustworthy seems worth it because $35,000 isn't going to cover all the cost of repairs anyway. 30 the $35,000 needs to stay with the students. I I I I vote no. You got my vote right now. Well, you know, we're damned if we do and we're
037damned if we don't. I mean, it's a catch 22, but keep everyone keep in mind that two years ago, we pulled almost $3 million out of reserves to do some much needed maintenance work. And we we got we got grief for that and there was some monies left over that that we rolled over into the next year and it was well documented yet we can't get past this fraud comment this fraud accusation and that is well documented how those reserves were spent towards maintenance. So, it's a catch 22, guys. And I just want to be clear. I'm not recommending not moving forward with the audit. I just said it might be wise to wait until the 25 audit comes in and see which year to audit. That's all I was trying to to say is
038buy us a little time for our staff to get through and then evaluate which audit year makes the most sense to do the forensic audit. I'm not trying to, you know, keep from having this done. It's just I want to be careful about how we move forward with it is really my I agree and I I agree. But now is not the time. Our our finance department is is is is new and they're they're I think it'd be overt taxing for the district right now. and why. And then we'll we could potentially put ourselves in the same um uh situation be that we were subjected to before, but for different reasons. I mean, I'm open as well, Aaron, um just pushing it back and having this next audit, especially with the previous CFO and just
039how poorly I heard some of the stuff from um Chris Banana who did the audit. And so I would be open to even choosing. I think B do was my favorite if that was the first one on my list. Yeah. Um for pushing and trying to contact them to see if we can get on the schedule for sometime in January. Remind me again what was the the um action item. Is it to vote on which one we're going with or to vote if we're going forward with it at all? We It can go either way. Uh the agenda says ask for a motion to postpone the decision if a decision has not been made or the other one is to uh to go ahead and engage with someone. So we we have both we have
040flexibility here in this agenda. Well, if if we're talking about the witch firm, which is what I prepared for here, um I thought Eddie Bailey was a good middle ground. Um the timeline was about the same as Ruben Brown, but their cost was about half. Yes. And then the BDO, I liked what they did, but their phase, they had a two-phase approach. The quote they gave us was only for phase one and phase one seemed like it was basically our our annual audit already looking for flags and then phase two would be digging in deeper if necessary. Um which I think Cassie you had brought up at one of the previous meetings as well. Um so for them I felt like we didn't have a quote for the right for what we actually needed. So,
041if I can jump in on that part of it, uh I'm going to agree with with Keegan on this as far as uh the firms and how this goes. The BDO was they had that pricing for phase one to evaluate what needed to be evaluated and then they'd quote us for phase two. That's part of my concern with moving forward with them is that I don't know how like we can budget for their phase one, but we have no idea what phase two is going to cost. And that that gives me a lot of anxiety and goosebumps as we're starting to talk about this. Um, and on the flip side with ID Bailey, they actually we sent them our full audit for FY24 to basically conduct what BDO does for phase one. and they did
042that for free and then came back and said based off of this this is our recommendation this is what it's going to cost and so that 35 that roughly that they were proposing is a informed quote based off of how our audit had already gone and so based off of that I like the idea of ID Bailey just because they've been really easy to work with they've already looked at our audit to know what needs to you know where where those gaps and the the crevices are that they need to be searching for and it's a fairly informed quote that we have a really good idea it's going to be close to that video so open-ended it makes me really nervous. Yeah, you're right. Actually, I had that backwards on my notes. Um I don't
043want to do the phase two over our head. You know, there'll be a phase two. Absolutely. And that could lead into the 62, you know, um probably on the high end where the other firm I did not like the last firm we talked about, but the ID Bailey, they were the ones that were not to exceed the fee of 35,000. So I I always pulled it up my notes and had that backwards. And then any of the out ofpocket fees um they were already listed above as all-incclusive of any estimated. So I thought that would be um more in our range as well. Were they the ones that was it Holings that um recommended them as well? Say that again. Holding did not recommend them. What they did is they said we have had clients
044who have used this firm with positive results but they don't they were about the only person they had on their list but this did come from holding. Okay. Okay. So, our decision is do we postpone it because we need to have as Aaron stated some reserve um for any kind of emergencies and really on anything under like a million dollars is not a lot of reserve and we don't even have a hundred,000. So, that that's that that's in front of us. Yeah. I'm Aaron. Would it be impossible to go ahead and start talking to them, seeing if we can get on their calendar for a later date in January, giving our for, you know, our um financial team time as well as working on the budget to cut so we're not overspending during this upcoming
045year and seeing if we can when they do the um when you have to do the second approval of the budget. This would be more in line with it as well as going ahead and trying to get an agreement with them. I don't know if they would ask for money up front, half of it, if they would wait until January or what that would entail. Could you give me a little insight on that? I don't have answers to those questions, but we can if the board if that's the direction the board wants to go and um I'm happy to open those conversations with them. I can if you want some more information from them before voting on this, uh I can reach out to them and start having some of those conversations about what the
046timeline would look like and what their billing process would be. Um one of the thoughts that I had was, hey, we're still in fiscal year 25. Why can't we bill it here? But we have to have like services rendered um we have to receive the goods that we order in order to count it this way um was my understanding from the the finance team which is part of the end ofear closeout stuff. So we might be able to put a chunk of it down here but as far as being able to put the whole thing I think there's some some concerns there. Um so I just wanted to make sure that was stated before we moved on. Um, but if if that's the direction the board's wanting to go with ID Bailey, that's that's great.
047Um, so we can start talking to them or if you want more information, I can get more. Um, Candace has your questions written down as far as the the types of things that you're looking at. And uh, if there's other questions the board has, we can reach out to them and see. You know, go ahead, Beck. Sorry, Keegan. You made a good point. you know, this could easily become political of, well, they're just putting this off till after the election. But the other side of that is we're trying to be fiscally responsible whether people believe it or not. And, you know, for us to wait till the wait for such a time that it's more economical and makes more sense and take some of the heavy load off our finance department. There's something to be
048said for that, too. We've got so many people that distrust us no matter what we do, but we've still got to be fiscally responsible, folks. Yeah. It just seems like putting your foot down, being fiscally responsible with accountability of whether you were being fiscally responsible before seems like an odd place. Does it make a difference though to anyone if we actually schedule it? We contract to do it so that we're we we're already committed to having it done. Would Would that make a difference to people? Because I think that everyone on this board agrees we need to do it. We must do it and it needs to be done soon. But the public, there's going to be people who oppose us and who will say we're avoiding things just like what you said, Keegan. Would
049it make So my question is, I'll just repeat it. Would it make a difference if we already contract to do it so everybody knows that yes, this is going to start by this date and it's going to include outside in more of the scope than what we're originally going to be looking at. Well, that shows good intent. You're absolutely right. Uh it shows we're not kicking a can down the road. Uh we're waiting for the opportunity for this to make the most sense and get the most bang for our buck. So can we then proceed today maybe with two votes? One to pick a firm that we intend to move forward with and then the second one could be whether we move forward with it now or or what next steps look like. Yeah. I
050I would want to hear a little bit more than just that though, Keegan. I would like to hear from the board a contractual commitment that we are moving forward with the firm that we pick and that we move forward by we're going to start this forensic audit by this date. So, the public knows it's committed and uh we're obligated to move forward with it. I don't disagree, Rust Holtz. I just would I think we all sort of agree on what firm. I think it just sort of is obvious from everyone's comments, but at the same time I would just move try to get those that contract to be set up in the day in January. Well, I think that's a good option. you guys uh if we set some firm things in place now, select
051a group and leave the start date a little bit liquid that we could explain. What's your what are all your thoughts? Would that be a nice um alternative to starting it now? I mean, if we select a firm, we're showing our intent and then we're allowing for the time to make the timing on this correct. Well, I would I I see a lot of re uh good discussion on why we should move postpone it to include next year or 25 and I also my gut feeling is to get it done now. But if we have more than just we pick a firm, I don't think that's good enough. I want to pick a firm and make a commitment that's not going to be able to change for a future audit in January or whenever that
052has to be. The sooner the better. So here I'll I'm make a motion that we move forward with Eddie Bailey as our uh forensic auditing firm. Are we are we allowed to make two motions on the action? I'm sorry, Cassie. Are we allowed to make two actions? Only one at a time. We We've got some flexibility here that just laid it out. Aaron didn't say anything. You can always add to the agenda. You can effectively bifurcate decisions into multiple parts. So based off the discussion, I don't see an I mean the original the original action item just said approve engagement with forensic audit firm. So even if we pick so I have a motion on the table by the way but I have a second. There's a second. So there's discussion. Okay. Um, so even
053you know even we selected if we select them and we would still need to talk to them to see even when we could get on their calendar. So I don't know that we as a board can really say we want it to start at this date. You know, we could say we wanted it to move forward as as soon as possible, or we can say we're we will we'll contact them, let them know our intent to engage, get the contracts moving forward, and then we can figure out once we see what their timeline looks like when it makes the most sense for us. That's that's a good idea, Keegan. Um we I mean the first item here was improve engagement with insert the name and then we we could vote on the group and then
054we could you know then we need to engage with them once we select a firm then obviously some time's needed to coordinate this right similarly to what we're going to do with the superintendent search. So I I do like that Keegan has a motion on the floor. David has seconded. Uh, any further discussion? No, I just wanted to make sure that was clear. Does everyone understand? Yes. This is to engage Eddie Bailey as the auditing company. Yes. With no firm commitment to time frame. It would just take us to the next level. Yeah. Yes. Everyone ready for a roll call? Roll call. Candace Barkley. Hi. Bates. I. Kimbell. I. Patterson. Rest. Sorry. I sorry. Thank you. Rtorster Holtz. I. Okay. The motion carries. Okay. And uh and then I guess next step with them and
055see what their timeline would look like. Yes. Since they gave us their timeline a couple months ago to make sure that still is accurate and when they make sure that their timeline is in alignment with our timeline to do this as efficiently as we can. I mean it's our responsibility. You know, it wouldn't hurt to ask them their opinion about starting it in January. No. Yeah. I mean that might even be another vote that we'll have to make as a board to after we see the contract. But I think um having the admin team go ahead and have a having these discussions to see when and see you know like restold said asking them what's more efficient especially knowing that some of this might roll over and to have um an audit from the previous
056CFO and the financial team and then um do we want to discuss any further I suppose the action items over but um a committee or or team that will be um engaging with them to prevent any real or perceived conflicts of interest in the communication with the audit firm. Um or do we want to just have it like Aaron, maybe you can CC us on the communication you have with them so we can see that in real time or something to that effect? Yeah, there's a couple different ways that we can handle this. I one of the firms also asked about going through uh actually I think a couple of them talked about going through an attorney rather than uh directly with the district or with the board. So what I'll do is I'll include
057that kind of a best practices in the conversation with them and we talk through the engagement and then I can come back to the board with sort of what their recommendations are and uh we can move forward. Okay, I like that. Okay, so we've made a motion. It's been approved to name the audit firm and uh so now there we don't need a motion to postpone the decision. The decision will have been made. It's going to be a matter of now of timing and coordination to move ahead. Correct. Yeah. And I think that will probably be another um board decision as well as soon as we get some of these answers from the um proposed auditors. And um I think we have another action item though, right? We do. We do. All right. Are we
058Is everyone good? Yep. All right. Well, then the next item is to approve the hire of chief of the chief financial officer. I'm asking for a motion to approve the hire of chief financial officer David Curitar and then uh and then a second. Uh do I have a motion? So moved. Do I have a second? Second. Any discussion? Um, can I just clarify that we're voting on this because it was not included in last week's um, consent calendar? Yes. And as we move forward, we were going to put it in August um, on the consent calendar, but we've run into a couple issues where some of the banks that he needs access to won't allow him without something from the board approving it. So, we went ahead and slid it on for tonight. It it
059became more time sensitive. Yes, Keegan. Okay. Thank you for clarifying. All right. Well then, roll call. Candace I Bates I Kimrell I. Patterson I. Rester Holtz I. Okay. There being no further items, uh I'd ask for a motion to adjourn this meeting. So moved. Second. David, are you seconding? He is. Yeah, I am seconding. Okay. All right. Roll call, please. Barkley, I. Bates, I. Campbell. I. Patterson. I. Motion carries this. Well, I didn't get the vote. What about Ruster Holtz? Yeah, right about Rustster Holtz. You didn't vote. Oh, forget about him. Yes. I I I All right. Sorry. Motion carries. All right. Uh meeting it meeting adjourned and thank you all. That was some good thoughtful conversation and I do like the ideas. We did select a firm and now some coordination will have to
060take place as to when this makes the most sense with the intention to move ahead. Excellent. Thank you guys. Thank you guys. Take care. Wonderful evening. Thank you Candace as always.