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Century Audit Costing Thousands More Due To Problems; Mayor Didn’t Tell Town Council For Weeks
May 23, 2019
Century’s annual audit will cost thousands of dollars more due to several factors, including a scathing grand jury investigation, and the mayor tell did not inform the council for weeks, NorthEscambia.com has learned.
The audit for the 2018 fiscal year that ended on September 30 is due to the state by the end of June. The town was informed in an April 8 email sent to Mayor Henry Hawkins, Town Clerk Kim Godwin, and town CPA Robert Hudson that the auditing firm Warren Averett was increasing their fee from $21,000 last year to a minimum of $30,000 this year.
Hawkins repeatedly told the town council over the last several weeks that the firm would begin the audit after tax season, but he never mentioned receiving any communication from the auditor or the $9,000 fee increase to the council. In the meantime, the audit did not begin due to a lack of an engagement letter (a type of contract with a CPA firm).
But an email obtained by NorthEscambia.com shows Hawkins forwarded the auditor’s email to Chief Deputy Clerk of Finance Kristina Wood on April 9. “FYI,” Hawkins wrote. “Now where do they think we’re getting the money from?”
CPA Kristen McAllister of Warren Averett said in a May 20 email to Town Council President Ann Brooks, “I do not think you have been informed correctly. I reach out to the Clerk, Mayor, and Robert (Hudson) a month ago to discuss a change in the audit contract before we can begin.” She added the delay “did not have anything to do with waiting until after tax season”.
McAllister said the higher audit fee was due to concerns over the utility billing cycle, concerns noted in the grand jury report, incorrect information provided that required multiple adjustments in the past two audits and a failure to follow the audit timeline.
For a previous story with details on the March grand jury report, click here.
NorthEscambia.com file photo and document images.
Comments
32 Responses to “Century Audit Costing Thousands More Due To Problems; Mayor Didn’t Tell Town Council For Weeks”
why has the state allowed them to not report the condition when the taxes were not remitted on time. http://www.leg.state.fl.us/cgi-bin/View_Page.pl?File=financial-emergencies.cfm&Directory=committees/joint/Jcla/
I thought Mike Hill would have ordered the audit from the state of Florida if the town would have followed the grand jury recommendations. To ignore that is to put the citizens further into jeopardy. You can’t ignore this.
Would seem like the accountant is the culprit. But why does anyone keep paying him?
YEP THE STORY KEEPS GETTING BETTER AND BETTER EACH DAY, MORE FUN READING NORTH ESCAMBIA THEN WATCHING TV, KEEP WATCHING. AS CENTURY TURN .ONE DAY MAYBE WE READ SOMEONE GO’S JAIL!!!
Are they above the law?
Why does the Governor and the States Attn allow this to continue?
Who voted these people in???
@Feed up
What’s the whole story?
Hawkins has always thought he was above the law just like Obama can’t wait till both of them get brought down and for all y’all that don’t go to the meeting Ann Brooks has always tried to do her job but no she has no backing up they are pleased before you say anything about some people you need to know the whole story she is a good person and she is doing her best but she’s just one person God bless
The mayor of century is freeloading off of the town and the citizens of century I know why he not smart enough and and to lazy to do a real occupation until he is pulled out of office I’m not paying one red cent in any tax and bypass century limits he setting in his big fancy chair reading these comments and laughing ha ha ha keep laughing AB
The Mayor should resign.
It’s not spelled Misfeasance at this stage..
Change the “i” to and “a”
MALFEASANCE—
Can you use that in a sentence (pun intended)
Need to clean house and start over…From the Mayor, on down…..
I think the Mayor and 3 board members live in an alternate reality!!!
Some towns are boring. Century is not.
The mayor is “a lie”.
It looks like the Grand Jury gave guideline that TOC should have notified the JLAC and also the Governor of Florida of the Financial Emergency, They recommended to sell the utilities, the state and county could have helped with transitioning the citizens to other service providers.
It looks like they are holding out for their own personal paychecks a bit longer. I think they were given a pass at first and none were charged with misfeasance and they were given an opportunity to try to figure it out themselves.
They aren’t figuring it out for themselves. Mrs Brooks is trying but she can’t do it alone. If they were to bring anything to a vote, 3 of the other council members protect the Mayor
The citizens can not recall the mayor. The council is failing to do their duty.
A higher office must act. The municipality doesn’t derive authority from the county but the State of Florida.
It stands to reason that when your city is in a mess financially, you hire a cashier from Odom’s to straighten things out. Good luck!
So the States Attorney Office is aware. What are they doing?
I don’t blame the audit firm for increasing their fees after reading the email the city was sent. The audit company can be liable if they don’t catch all the shenanigans being pulled, and it sounds like Century is a nightmare client… not providing information on time and all sorts of issues that probably take days of investigation by W/A.
Then you have the mayor straight up lying to the town council, saying that the audit firm was waiting until “after the tax season” to start the audit. The lady from the W/A clearly states it was nothing to do with that, but everything to do with the city agreeing to the new terms, which for some reason the mayor didn’t want to present to the council, probably because the extra fee is all because of incompetence on the city’s part….
Does this mean they are going to approve my personal loan request?
I would love to work for the Town Council and help straighten out this mess, but, I cannot afford to have my paycheck bounce.
What is next? Russian collusion?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
It’s a mess just like what’s in Washington
Drain the swamp start with the new thief they just hired
DUHHHH!!!!! Don’t be surprised
Auditing duties, Payroll taxes. gross receipt taxes these have always been the duty of the clerk. When and why have they been turned over to Kristina Wood. What does the clerk do? Is she not qualified to do these jobs. Again I think the city hall need to be cleaned out and get some qualified people in these positions.
We are keeping Flag at half mast until Century Funeral in picture.
Sure am glad they rejected a proposal to lease the old helicopter building, I’m sure after 10 years, there is bound to be a higher bidder…eventually!
I nominate Henry Hawkins Mayor of The Year.
And they would have known this when they rejected
The sale of the helicopter building? Makes it seem an
Even worse decision not to sale it if the town has this
Many financial problems. Who is minding the store in Century?
Good Gosh, this whole M-E-SS about Century leadership (????) just gets deeper and stickier and smellier.
What does it take for the state to step in and start doing its job to do forensic audit and prepare findings for a Grand Jury Investigation?
Mayor’s wording seems just flippant to me, like he’s smirking while typing the memo.
What a horrible situation for the Citizens.
The stormy sky in the picture suits this article perfectly!
When will this mess ever end?
Just when you think it can’t get any worse, it does.
The incompetence and malfeasance surely can’t be allowed to continue.
Looks like Warren/Averett has Century over a barrel. And why not, with all the cooking of the town’s books that has been going on, which clouds their money problems?