Bookmark list

  •  CALL TO ORDER / ROLL CALL

  •  PUBLIC COMMENT

  •  AGENDA APPROVAL

  •  CONSENT CALENDAR

  •  BUSINESS ITEMS:

    ITEM #4: AWARD OF CONTRACT FOR PROFESSIONAL AUDITING SERVICES

  •  AGENCY MEMBERS' REPORTS, COMMENTS, & REQUEST FOR FUTURE AGENDA ITEMS / ADJOURNMENT

* use Ctrl+F (Cmd+F on Mac) to search in document
Unable to preview the file. Make sure you have Adobe Reader installed
* use Ctrl+F (Cmd+F on Mac) to search in document
Unable to preview the file. Make sure you have Adobe Reader installed
* use Ctrl+F (Cmd+F on Mac) to search in document
Unable to preview the file. Make sure you have Adobe Reader installed

Transcript

Meeting. I'm calling this meeting to order. 00:01:04
The time is now. 00:01:08
4:01 PM. 00:01:09
Madam Clerk, if you could please take. 00:01:14
Roll call. 00:01:16
Member Lopez. 00:01:20
Here, remember Leau. 00:01:22
Present Vice Chair Thomas. 00:01:23
Present OK Member McQueen Leon. 00:01:26
Here. 00:01:28
Record reflect that Chair Hernandez is absent. 00:01:29
Thank you. 00:01:33
We will now hear public comments. 00:01:34
Comments are limited to 3 minutes. 00:01:36
Madam Clerk, does anyone have a? 00:01:39
Public. 00:01:41
Comment No public comment. 00:01:42
May I now have a motion? 00:01:47
And a second. 00:01:49
To approve the agenda. 00:01:50
Move to approve. 00:01:53
2nd. 00:01:54
Madam Clerk, please take a vote. 00:01:57
All in favor. 00:01:58
Aye, all opposed. 00:02:00
Hearing none, motion passes unanimously. 00:02:02
We will now consider items on the consent calendar which will be enacted in one motion. 00:02:06
Unless an agency member has a request to remove an item for discussion. 00:02:11
I move to approve the consent calendar. 00:02:17
2nd. 00:02:20
Madam Clerk, please take a vote. 00:02:21
All in favor. 00:02:23
Aye, all opposed. 00:02:24
Hearing none, motion passes unanimously with a Chair Hernandez. 00:02:27
Thank you. 00:02:31
The next item is the award of Contract for Professional. 00:02:32
Auditing services. 00:02:35
We're going to have. 00:02:38
A presentation. 00:02:40
From staff. 00:02:42
Good evening. 00:02:59
Good afternoon, PHW board members. Thank you all so much for your time today. 00:03:00
We will be going over an award of contract for auditing services. 00:03:05
Some brief background. 00:03:12
Our PHW auditors have been Brown Armstrong certified public accounting firm. 00:03:13
For over 20 years. 00:03:19
We are really thankful for their work. They've been really great to work with, commutative and reliable and responsive. This. 00:03:21
Change of auditors is simply because. 00:03:27
Our California State Controller's office actually recommends that we switch firms. 00:03:30
Typically every six years just to remain. 00:03:35
Have independent information, a fresh eye, looking at our financials and reviewing our work so that you don't develop a 00:03:38
relationship with your auditor. 00:03:41
And their remaining. 00:03:45
A third party. 00:03:47
So for that reason. 00:03:48
Are we did request when we presented our last fiscal year effort to you all. 00:03:50
In April. 00:03:55
We let you know we would be seeking a new audit firm for this upcoming Ackford financial audit for this fiscal year. 00:03:56
25 that just ended on June 30th. 00:04:04
So we did post out an RFP seeking a certified accounting firm to start auditing us moving forward. 00:04:10
The audit The RFP was posted on March 17th. 00:04:17
We did request for. 00:04:21
Bids for a contract. 00:04:23
To specifically audit fiscal year's ending June 30th, 202526 and 27, so the three upcoming fiscal years with the option to extend 00:04:25
for two more subsequent years should things go well without auditing firm. 00:04:32
When we did post our bid. 00:04:39
We followed the following calendar that left room for questions. Should they have questions of staff before placing a bid. 00:04:42
We responded to those questions and did have a due date. 00:04:49
By that May 30th due date, we were lucky enough to receive 6 bid responses that were qualified and met all of our. 00:04:53
Qualifications. 00:05:00
We are here today to present you with our selection, hoping for contract execution with. 00:05:02
These auditors. 00:05:08
The six bids we received the auditing firms are listed here for your review. They're all very well known auditors in our area. 00:05:12
And you will see that they all ranked very high. 00:05:20
So the composite average score was actually they were all pretty similar because they all met all of the qualifications that we 00:05:22
asked for. Some of the things we were ranking them on were their staff qualifications and experience. 00:05:28
Work done in the past with similar entities to the PHWA. 00:05:35
And their specific audit approach of their team that they would be assigning to us for. 00:05:38
These years. 00:05:43
These auditing years. 00:05:45
So you can tell. 00:05:47
Really, the major difference we're looking at is the. 00:05:48
Cost proposals at this point because they were all qualified and there is a wide range of. 00:05:51
The cost proposals we received. 00:05:57
But since Harsh Wall and company did come in the lowest and did meet all of our qualifications and rank. 00:06:00
High we do recommend moving forward with this auditing firm. 00:06:06
There are 15 year old auditing firm. 00:06:11
They have 40 years of accumulated accounting experience amongst their team. 00:06:13
But what I focused on there was that at least everyone on our team that they're suggesting. 00:06:18
Has over 7 years of experience auditing similar entities. 00:06:23
They had a passing peer review. 00:06:27
They are somewhat local with the office in San Diego, but we work with them fully remotely anyways. 00:06:29
Which is why I think we're so successful in getting 6 bids. 00:06:35
They do work with cities, counties and special districts similar to ourselves. 00:06:38
The first year cost proposal for them is. 00:06:43
Priced at 13,000 and they did put in a 5% inflationary adjustment cost for all of the years moving forward. 00:06:46
And I was able to get positive reviews when I did call and ask several of the their past clients. 00:06:54
So Harsh one company is our suggested vendor that we would like to contract with for. 00:07:04
For professional auditing services. 00:07:10
Representing that to you now for your consideration and approval to move forward with this contract. 00:07:12
Please let me know if you have any questions. 00:07:17
Yeah, at this point, any of the agency members that have. 00:07:20
Questions and only questions. 00:07:23
Comment and discussion will be done later. 00:07:25
I have questions. 00:07:28
So what was the cost? 00:07:29
Of our previous auditor. 00:07:31
That is a really good question. 00:07:34
I do know that we already have the 13,000 budgeted, so I want to say it was slightly higher than that. 00:07:36
So they did come in according to our budget for what we had hoped to pay for the audit this upcoming fiscal year. So it is this 00:07:44
amount is lower than what we paid last year's auditor. 00:07:48
OK. Yeah, I was thinking it was going to be a substantial savings because. 00:07:53
They, they've been doing it for so long and, and they're probably 5%, you know, whatever their percentage increases escalating. 00:07:57
Off the top of my head I want to say it was 18,000 but I will have to get back to you at that exact amount. 00:08:04
And then how many other water agencies does? 00:08:10
Do they? 00:08:13
Currently audit. 00:08:14
The new vendor. 00:08:15
They provided a list. 00:08:17
A very long list of special districts. 00:08:19
As far as specifically water agencies, I couldn't tell you the exact number. 00:08:23
But they do have several on this list and the one that I did call. 00:08:28
Was Valley of the Moon water district. They're from up north in the Napa area, but they're small like us and they gave us positive 00:08:32
reviews of their work in their ongoing client with them. 00:08:37
OK. 00:08:42
That's all I have. 00:08:44
Thank you. 00:08:45
Yes, ma'am, the. 00:08:47
The 15 years that the the company's been in business, how is that comparable to some of the other? 00:08:49
Audit firms that we looked at, some of the audit firms do have more years and they are larger firms. 00:08:54
Which is part of why you do get that cost increase, because they're going to give you a larger team. 00:09:00
But when we looked at the number of hours that we spent with our prior auditors, we felt comfortable moving forward with this 00:09:06
smaller firm just because. 00:09:10
You know that. 00:09:15
You've seen our budget are we don't have too many line items. We're very fortunate that this is a pretty easy repetitive audit. 00:09:16
So that is why we felt comfortable moving forward with this one. Even though they have the 15 year mark, I will say some of the 00:09:23
others did have. 00:09:27
Higher amount of years. 00:09:31
But they are bigger. 00:09:33
Thank you. 00:09:35
Yeah, just one question, is the 5% if? 00:09:37
The inflation increase, is that pretty normal? 00:09:41
I would say so. 00:09:44
I would say so that's. 00:09:46
I think on the lower end sometimes when it comes to auditing firms. OK, great. Thank you. That's it. 00:09:48
I'm assuming there's no. 00:09:54
Public comments since we don't have. 00:09:56
Any public No public comment. 00:09:58
Offense part. 00:10:00
Does anybody else have any other comments? 00:10:03
OK, so we have a recommendation to. 00:10:07
Select. 00:10:09
Harsh Wall and Company LLP for professional auditing services. 00:10:10
For an initial three-year period. 00:10:15
That would be 2024 through 25. 00:10:17
26 and 27 with two one year renewal options. 00:10:20
And authorized staff to execute a contract reviewed and approved. 00:10:24
By Fort Wayne Amy Water Association's attorney. 00:10:28
May I have a motion and a second? 00:10:33
I moved to approve the recommendation. 00:10:35
2nd. 00:10:37
Madam Clerk, please take a vote. 00:10:39
All in favor. 00:10:41
Aye, all opposed. 00:10:42
Hearing none, motion passes unanimously with Chair Hernandez absent. 00:10:44
Thank you, Ashley. Appreciate it. 00:10:48
At this point we have any member reports comments. 00:10:54
And request for future. 00:10:57
Agenda items? Does anybody have any information you want to share? 00:10:59
No, OK. 00:11:05
This was a good meeting. 00:11:07
The next regular meeting is scheduled for Monday, September 15th, so we have August off. 00:11:10
So I'd like to adjourn the meeting. 00:11:16
The time is now 410. 00:11:19
Is that a record? 00:11:21