since the inception we've had them for seven years now we initially started with a five year contract three with two year option which we did extend and then we extended two more years and we're here to ask or discus idea of extending that for two more years so i wanted to start with giving you a little bit of you know my perspective on what the what the purpose of auditors what what is their value what's their purpose and all that and what do they do and what don't they do going to issue bonds we have to have a an audited financial statements for them to be able to rely on some financial information about us so every year they come out and audit our books they mostly look at what we give them in terms financial report and they do test to make sure that the numbers are are reasonably correct not that they're one hundred percent accurate but that they're not materially mistaking our financial position or how the we ended the year they do as part of that they do a test and a review of our internal control systems so all of our accounting procedures our policies how we handle transactions they do that primarily to determine how much actual audit work substantive work they do so it's the process of assessing risk if they see that we have very few internal controls in place they're going to do a lot more work in the field if they see that we have good internal control systems in a good sort of internal control environment which really starts with the council and our state administrator myself is the environment sort of one that people are aware of what's important the internal controls how important they are and that we're we want to do you know do the right thing then their work can be diminished and they do a lot less while they'll still find something that says you know i might want to change this procedure or tighten up this procedure they're more housekeeping kinds of things they've never since they've been here and ever since i've been here for twenty years have has any auditor ever indicated that we have a material weakness in our systems where we have a problem with that we could either be losing money or the financial statements could be misrepresented or misstated it's always the cleanup stuff so in terms of their role their role is to really give an opinion on the financial statements and secondarily really is to kind of give us a sense of how are we doing from an internal control perspective so i have no illusions that that that the auditors are there to protect us to and to protect us from any loss such as we've had in the past and other agencies have had in the past it you  know that's not their role so you look at the city of bell who had a lot of crazy things going on and you would have assumed that the auditors would have seen some of those and found some of those i could see the circumstances where they wouldn't but there is this perception that they should have definitely found those things seeing those things reported those things and it's just not the nature of what an auditor does so kind of with that context i wanted just to share with you that you know we would like to extend the contract for two more years for a number of  reasons one is i don't want to put this at number one that's not in order but it is a major change to go through new waters because we're having to sort of retrain a lot of folks and there's a lot of work for us and we've just come through a you know difficult period and it'll continue as a result of the thomas fire and the debris flow where we're now having to make claims ourselves and work with the dis as part of this disaster recovery effort to make claims with fema and cal oes so our staff who who would be doing the rfp are impacted by that lsl has been a good firm to work with they're very confident they're one of the top in the in their area their field and in the state and so i know they you know they have provided a really it's really good service over the over the years i don't feel that there's a risk by extending their contract two more years that we're gonna they're gonna somewhat we're gonna lose um what's the you know that that the the integrity of an audit you know sometimes there's there's people feel like if you have an auditor for too long they can become complacent and people they get too familiar and then you lose that sort of that independence and i don't see that happening at all in fact we've had some number of changes to the people who they've assigned to their engagement the manager who's the key person as well as the all that is to say we think you know while it's a little unusual to have a contract go this long at least these days in the past we've had a firm for twenty years i remember when i got here we had pmark for twenty years these days it's probably good to change five seven years or so um but given the sort of over other circumstances around this i don't think it's unreasonable for us to extend to two years and and create any problems so that's kind of our proposal any questions for mr samar council member doing us so did you say we're we've done a five year and then two two years or one two year rollover yeah when we initially contracted with them we always do sort of a three year with a two year option to extend which we did and then on top of that we added two more years so we are now done with that seven years so this for the for the fiscal year ending june thirty two thousand and eighteen we will either be hiring lsl to do that audit or somebody else so i would i would uh my personal preference would be to go with someone new this year but given the extenuating circumstances i would suggest either i'd be open to funding something within your department that would make up for that gap in order to hire someone new or i would recommend maybe a one year extension would it how would that impact you if there was a one year extension versus a two year committee member dominguez what it would mean is that we would be or we proposed a two year extension we would just add a one year extension we'd have to come back to council either in either case to get the contract and approval or our budget release provides for their for an audit every year so it's not a budgetary impact it just means that next year this time we would be doing  uh actually to follow up on council member dominguez's question so if we just did for the one year because uh i had the same concerns um and about it would be nine years total if i corrected we did the two year but giving the the circumstances that we  have on our staff and then and there's a you kind of answer those questions on why this is why you're recommending this but if we did a year and you came back the concern i would have is if we're still dealing with a lot of those fema and other issues related to the fire and the debris speaks to what you said at the beginning which is the values and the the point that we make about trying to do the right thing and trying to stick to a regular uh process that is um transparent and clear having that direction from the council that we'd like it to be as short as possible but given the extenuating circumstances we'd like to see a year that makes i think that's a great solution that compromises at both ends so is there a motion for menu buddy i'd move to um and  this seeking a recommendation to the council yes so i'd move to recommend to the full city council that we uh extend the current auditor by one year sir second ocean has been made and seconded any other comments all those in favor oppose and abstain matter carries and we are adjourned yeah and just so real quick so within the next few weeks we will bring an item to council on consent that extends the contract for one year with this firm thank you