Milo officials authorized to operate while audit is being finished

MILO — At last month’s annual town meeting  many of the articles making up the warrant were not voted on by residents. With a town audit awaiting completion, these budgetary items will instead be decided at a special town meeting after attendees approved a motion to pass over all the monetary articles.

The special town meeting concerning the passed over warrant articles is still to be scheduled, but municipal officers were authorized to operate the town finances for up to three months during a special town meeting on March 29.

“We didn’t get a chance to vote on the budget because we did not get  the financial audit completed,” Town Manager Robert Canney said. He said the town’s auditor and attorney both recommended having a special town meeting vote to authorize the select board to spend an amount not to exceed three-twelfths of each budgeted category in the 2022 annual budget from March 13 to June 13.

Canney said an affirmative vote would help “make sure we don’t have to come back and do this again.”

He said the audit is expected to be completed by the end of the month. “If we have it within a week of the May board meeting (Tuesday, May 2) we will just have it before the board meeting,” the town manager said. “If it’s about a week out from that we will schedule it as soon as we can.”

Canney said there was a gap in town treasurers and “we had some things that were posted in the wrong department and that’s what we’re working to fix. Some things are posted to the right department but not to the right account.” 

“I feel confident that we will be done sooner rather than later,” he said.

Early in the March 13 annual town meeting Canney was asked why the general government accounts article (the second article on the warrant) did not list 2022 actual figures for items such as administration and insurances, instead having 2021 actual, 2022 proposed, and 2023 proposed figures.

“We have not not completed the audit, we have reconciled the bank accounts for the year,” Canney responded last month. He said verification of the correct posting of invoices to the correct account is on-going as the town’s treasurer retired during the process and a previous treasurer has come back to assist with the audit.