City audit costs extra $37,000

By Robbie Dingeman
Advertiser City Hall Writer

The city will pay $37,000 more to a private accounting firm for the city's annual financial audit because of delays by the city administration in giving the company information needed to complete the analysis.

The Council Budget Committee Wednesday approved adding money to the city legislative budget to cover the higher payment to PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. Dennis Tsuhako, a partner in the company, sent a letter to city officials saying that the added cost was incurred because "we encountered a number of problems and delays by the administration" in trying to complete the audit for the 2001 fiscal year.

City Budget Director Caroll Takahashi said the city was working to determine what caused the discrepancies in the sewer supplies inventory and had pointed out the problems to the auditing firm. "If we didn't point it out, they wouldn't have known about it," she said.

The company was to have received $209,000 to complete the audit, but is now scheduled to received $246,000 for the work.

Ivan Kaisan, of the city's Office of Council Services, told the committee that the additional funds will come from the city's sewer fund, which gets its support from taxpayers connected to the sewer system who pay a service charge.

Tsuhako said his company worked 500 hours over the budgeted amount "because the city administration was unable to provide sufficient information to support the sewer fund's inventories of materials and supplies and related expense."