Yeah, yeah.

I will take one of us.

Oh, okay.

That was kind of cool.

That was a good one.

I didn't recognize that we got everybody on notice.

Oh, sorry.

Thank you.

No.

I mean, do you I think I think we didn't operate the different things?

Right.

Right.

Sometimes it's Congress.

And I think that's a good question.

Can I last the notice of community?

So it's going to be that you have to meet the student.

So Director Regal will not be here.

Good.

So we get we must say on the way.

So we must start with a core.

Do we have to end with a core?

I would I would think so.

Right.

Right.

That's why it doesn't have three thirds.

And we can do that.

I think we've got a quorum, right?

See if we can.

Okay.

Well, that's that's this time we're gonna go ahead and call the meeting to order.

Um at this special meeting on August the 7th of the year 2025.

Uh keep in mind these meetings uh this meeting is being recorded for those residents who cannot be with us in person.

Um Madam Clerk, if you would please call the roll.

Directors Rigo here.

Here George Petavis Christina Pittsabas.

Here settled.

Mark here.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

At this time, we do have with us uh our audit committee.

And uh without objection, we'll hear from them if they have any questions for our potential candidates.

Uh so guys, uh you're welcome to to visit with the candidates.

Who who all's here?

Which candidate?

How many candidates do you have?

Yeah, maybe today we have uh James Carter here.

Can James Kerr like to recognize him?

Yeah, James.

Uh recognize James Carter, who is uh one of the applicants.

Uh so uh James, if you would uh just sit in over there, yeah.

Yeah, why don't we get the audit committee over here?

And James, you can sit there.

And we'll we'll ask our audit committee to uh introduce themselves.

Uh we're very fortunate that people in Fort Smith, uh the professional enforcement volunteer to get that time to serve on boards and commissions, and one of our most effective uh and and in my opinion, uh one of the best boards is is our audit committee.

So guys, if uh ladies and gentlemen, if you would introduce yourselves and then you may proceed to to visit with James.

We're gonna let James introduce himself and then we'll move forward.

James, why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself and then we'll start with our audit committee.

Nice to meet you all.

Uh my name is James Carter.

Um I currently live in Little Rock, Arkansas.

I've been working in audit for about close to 20 years now.

Um finances started my career pretty young in the military.

Uh after the military went on to work uh on a national on national scale with the first American title and and a few other title companies.

Went from there to working for the state of Arkansas, really enjoyed it as a uh internal auditor.

Um and now I I'm back in the title industry and pretty much mostly development.

Russ Bragg.

There you go.

There we go.

Russ Bragg.

Uh I'm Levon Morton.

Um, and uh my background is uh I'm CPA and um I was an auditor with uh Ernst and Young for 24 years and then with ArcBest Corporation here in Fort Smith for 20 years, and I've been member of the audit committee for um uh most of the time since it was born in about 2000.

And also he served on our city board of directors.

Okay.

Yes, sir.

Ed Ralston, I'm a local resident of Fort Smith, CPA, also worked in public accounting and and private as well.

Got one up here now.

Hi, I'm Dina Infield.

I'm the chair of the audit committee of the audit advisory committee.

I'm a practicing CPA here in the Fort Smith area.

Okay.

Thank you all very much.

This time we will welcome any questions or comments from our audit committee.

Thanks for being here, James.

We appreciate you making the trip from Little Rock.

So I just wanted to kind of start out.

You kind of mentioned that you had been in the military.

Um tell us a little bit, just you know, you have on your resume, you were a training instructor, and then also you worked with DHS as a grants auditor.

So just kind of tell us a little bit about your specific background in the audit, internal audit, external audit uh industry.

Okay.

Um the military, when I was in the military uh as a program director, the unit ministry team, uh worked with the chaplain over the chaplaincy programs.

Um that was I was a I was a certified card holder, so I was over the procurement and the audits program for the uh once we you know all of the cardholders were required required to reconcile once a month all of their purchases and all their cash deposits.

That was one of my external well, one of my extra duties as we called it, extra duty responsibilities to manage those funds.

Sometimes there were um sometimes there uh it depends on the installation I was at.

And when I was at Bragg, uh a lot of accounts.

Uh sometimes in one month upwards of 200 reconciliations.

Uh for Fort Benning was about the same at a smaller installation, it was less responsibility, but that was pretty much my the extent of my audit uh experience during the military.

Now, after that um going on to work, you know, with DHS, it was a really uh high regular regulatory uh position.

It required uh knowledge of CFR, uh a great knowledge of titles, Title 45, 200, uh title 200, um uniform, different uniforms of uniform guidance.

So um it really sort of went my career went from checking the books, went from doing reconciliations to ensuring uh more of a compliance type position.

Working with Arkansas legislative audit out of Little Rock to uh ensure that um internal controls were being being reinforced to ensure that after the audits had performed have been performed, we did a lot of regulatory follow-up to make sure that statutory standards and everything and everything were those uh those individuals or organizations that were audited were made their self-compliant.

Thank you.

As part of that, um what kind of describe your experience with more like the risk assessment?

Were you given programs that you used?

Did you have to develop the procedures that you were gonna do and kind of do a risk assessment of the areas you were gonna cover?

Describe that process for us.

The risk assessment process we did um in the military and in uh working for Department of Human Services, very structured.

It was very structured, and we used what was called a draw, a deliberate um a deliberate risk assessment worksheet.

That's where we took, depending on what what the internal control was, or depending on the finding or the observation, we were rate it from low to high, depending on where it fell within that chart.

Um there was not a lot of wiggle room uh with that because of state regulation and and when in the military it was government regulation and statutory is issues due to where it came to risk assessment, it was it was pretty tight, pretty tight knit to where they you know how we rated uh the issue, the the level of risk with something.

Did you do did you have multiple audits going on at once?

Did you kind of work one audit, get it finished, then start on the next one, and then also as part of that, how did you do your reporting?

Would you would you uh draft reports as far as you can get those out?

Were you part of a team that did the reporting?

Describe that as that process a little bit as well.

Oh right.

I I wish uh uh every every uh bit of audit that I've ever worked in, I've always been um responsible for the entire project from start to finish.

Uh I haven't ever had anybody to write a report for me or create a slide show.

I would I wish that I did, but I haven't.

As far as re as far as reporting, the um I I would always draft my own reports, draft my own findings.

I would always draft my um docum uh all my key documentation, I was always responsible for my key documentation and any deliberals that uh that I was responsible for getting uh to the organization, I was always responsible for that.

And the first part of the question you asked uh did you kind of have multiple audits going at once or was it kind of finishing one and starting the next?

No, uh we always well I always had to have a pipeline.

I always had to have a pipeline of audits, uh they were always overlapping.

Uh I never had the luxury of working one at a time in order to keep up with the demand.

I it was always a um I would always have items that were being prepped, and then I will I have my workload that I was actually working, and then I always had my um my items that I was finishing up on and getting ready to uh send in the deliverables of the report, but there will always be overlapping another pre-audit.

So sometimes during a busy season, those audits could come to I could be working as many as uh twelve at a time.

Just uh, you know, what and and uh I didn't neglect to say at the beginning I'm not a CPA or an auditor, but I'm a retired businessman from here from Fort Smith.

But one of the things that in the two years I've been on here that I've seen is the process audits.

You know, we you have the financial audits that we do a lot of work in as well, but we also look at a lot of our processes.

Um the process audits and waste management and transportation and all the other the waste, you know, the water and sewer departments, and that's as much process oriented as it is the numbers.

Can you give me a little feel for your history with pr the how you do the process audits?

Now when you say process, are you saying the business processes that keep the systems working?

Oh, yes, definitely, yes, sir.

Process uh audits are uh for me my from my experience where we actually went in to see uh they take a usually took a little longer than a financial audit because a financial audit you have business financial statements that are right there in front of you.

You can sort of start the work immediately.

A process audit usually would take a little longer because you sort of had to get eyes on what was happening so that you can see what was happening, and then based off of what what what you what you're actually making contact with, then you can start to sort of um review what's working, what's not working, what can we do to make it work better?

How can we do more with with less, or how can we do more with what how can we um maximize what we already have?

That was a part of our thought when we wanted to a process audit because it's all is always to improve the process, right?

So um you had to be a a little bit more hands-on, it took a little bit more of understanding how things work.

I mean, um, let's say you may walk into something that you that you haven't done before, but if you have certain ways of working a process, and uh and I think uh the idea that we always use was function over form.

It doesn't really matter much what something uh looks like, the form that it's in, if you can stick to like the best practices and basic ways of uh methodologies of working out a business process, you usually could come to a conclusion to where you can make it work better.

Okay.

Just did then the kind of a follow-up, just a more general question, why does this opportunity excite you to to come to Fort Smith and be a part of the Fort Smith team?

Um I when I went to the military was from here in Fort Smith.

My mother moved here when I was uh younger, and um I liked it.

I liked the I like the feel, I like the feel of Fort Smith.

Um I graduated from Barber College here at at West Ark Barber College, out on Towson when he was out there.

I um I when I got out of the military and I first came back and I started uh finished my education, it was at it was at West Ark when they turned into University of Arkansas.

So I have some history here and I like it.

Um I think that it's a great place to raise a family.

All right, well.

Um so in terms of uh staff oversight and and supervision.

Have you in your background has there been uh some of that or a lot of that, or you just g just give me a view of of your experience with staff oversight because in this position, you it's a director position, so it's running a department that currently has three people with varying degrees of experience in auditing.

So there is some supervision and review necessary.

So give me give us a uh view of your background in that area and how you would approach how you would approach if you don't have a lot of experience in that area, how you would approach getting more experience.

Well, supervising it it is an ongoing thing, right?

Um when working, I think working with people is always ongoing.

You always sort of learn.

Um I always teach myself how to be better, how to how to try to do things better.

I do have experience in uh supervising, and when I was in the military, it was it was a lot.

There was a lot of supervisors, and I had to work for a lot of supervisors.

So I had a lot of supervisors that I work for that I also balanced.

Um but I think supervising a team.

First of all, you have to be who you say you are.

You have to be responsible.

I think accountability is is a big deal when supervising.

I think the no one expects perfection out of their supervisors or the people that they work for, but I think everyone expects accountability and personal responsibility.

I've always taken it from that stance to um whatever it is that I require of those who work for me or work with me to to be a product of that very thing that I asked them.

Um to um understand professional balances.

I um I know some people do.

I I haven't uh not and I do have peers that I work with that you know they they had a different mentor type of uh supervision type of skills, and they will go do things after hours with uh people that they work with, the what well people that work for them.

I I never got into that.

Um one of the things that I that being an auditor, auditing is very isolated.

Um I've always found myself working by myself, and because of that, I've always found that it's hard to um it's very hard to develop this relationship with someone and then have to come back and investigate them.

So I just never did that other part, right?

So being an auditor.

Now from a supervisor uh standpoint working working with the with people, especially you know, people who are intelligent and and and and do uh are pretty smart.

I don't expect to be smarter than them.

I I do expect um that I know how to actually use the talent that's given to me to get the job done, and I think that's what's expected.

Okay.

Um okay, one more question, and and then I'll uh I'll pass it on.

The you know I know you have a master's degree in information systems, master's degree in information systems management.

Um that you're apparently will be uh it says May 26th, so yeah, I guess that's in process.

Okay.

So in terms of um actual in your in your either your college uh experience or perhaps your military experience or your government experience, uh actual uh auditing classroom type training, either either for uh just normal auditing or government auditing or and or accounting type classroom.

Can you describe your your background in those areas?

Yes, I have um I've had a a lot of training and budget anal in budget analytics, uh accounting officers, accounting technician, um pretty much anything in in finance.

Um at some point or another, I have taken some type of training, whether it be in the military, working with the Army National Guard, as far as actually work with the Army National Guard, those are all classes that I teach.

Um, not only do I teach, but I also do the development for those classes.

So and what type of classes are those exactly?

Those are all of the training.

Let's say if someone goes into the Army National Guard and they're working in finance or some type of capacity, they uh they come through uh the professional education center, and that is where I teach and direct those classes so that they can get the credits to um for their training.

Okay.

Very good.

Okay.

Yeah, first um, thanks for your service to the military and your work in government.

That's uh it's very noble to do, and we have a lot of people here that do that, and and society is better because of people that choose to serve like that.

So thank you.

Um I guess the the what I want to know a little bit is you know that our city, just like most government entities and most like entities in general, can become complicated playgrounds.

And so, particularly when you're the auditor and you're the lead auditor, your ability to kind of manage the playground and manage yourself on a somewhat complicated playground.

So I guess what I'm I'm interested to hear, I was I like your your answers around kind of supervising people and and that sort of thing.

But just tell us a little bit about kind of who you are and how you manage yourself on the playground.

It can be a little complicated.

So, you know, the the oversight and the role that you play from an independence point of view in this capacity, and at the same time manage yourself daily at City Hall is it does matter, and your effectiveness will be driven by your ability to do it effectively.

So just kind of free rope, tell us tell us a little bit about how you how you get along.

All right.

Well, well, um I I consider myself a really easy going person.

Um as long as I'm getting the job done, right?

The first thing I need to do is when I get to work is do my job.

If I'm not doing my job, I could be a little cranky.

But as long as I have I'm afforded the opportunity to show up and the tools that I need and that are necessary for me to do a good job are there.

I'm pretty easy going.

Um as far as working with my peers and working with others, I haven't I'm very fortunate.

Uh I've been very fortunate in my careers.

Uh my career, I haven't had any issues with anyone.

Um not to say that no one has been an issue.

I simply choose, I choose not to make uh some things an issue.

Um I I think that um how can I put it?

I I I once was I once was in a foxhole with the guy, right?

And a lot of people had a lot of uh things to say about that guy.

But um when we were in the foxhole, uh he said to me, if you shoot that way, I shoot this way, and we'll get back home.

And we did that and we came back home.

No problems as long as we're doing our job.

What I mean by that is everything that I do when I'm at work is always mission-based.

Um it's always surrounding the integrity that's needed to first get the job done.

Uh I do watch, I I do try to do my best with watching myself as far as bad humor, get you in trouble, right?

Um stepping boundaries, uh, not respecting boundaries.

Um a lot of these things I have seen in the workplace, and a lot sometimes I've had people that work for me that I have I've had to um to come up with improvement, improvement programs for for things of that nature.

Um like I said, I'm in the in the workplace, you it'd be you'll be hard-pressed to catch me not just simply talking about work.

You know, um you'll be, I mean I I stay, I try to stay inside of regulation the best that I can.

Uh I I'm not an opinionative person.

I don't know, I don't I don't have a lot of opinions about things, you know.

I and I guess that's something that comes from being an auditor.

I'm I'm a data-driven guy.

I stick to the facts, and um I don't let a lot of things get under my skin.

I don't let things I don't take a lot of things outside of work and family too serious.

You know, um outside of work and family, I'm on a boat, uh, I'm at the driving range, and I'm not talking about work, you know.

Other than that, that's it.

Okay.

If you uh, you know, and you kind of talk about the things you like to do, but if if you were the person that's selected, you know, like in a game in an NFL game, you know, the first 15 plays are scripted.

What is your script look like coming in?

What is your first 90 days look like at what's your game plan if you get the opportunity to come to Fort Smith and be part of the team?

What's your opening game plan look like?

I would definitely say the the first 30 days would be a lot of observation.

It would be paying a lot of attention to those um the individuals that I work for and paying a lot of attention to those the individuals who will be working for me.

Um the first that first 30 days would be myself making sure that I understand the overall mission of the stakeholders and the board of directors and those who are who uh who give me my directions.

Uh it would also be lining up for um to ways and methods that I'm I plan to convey what they give to me to those who work for me.

Um so basically that first 30 45 days will be getting expectations in line.

I will say after that, now we're gonna move into stating those expectations would be what which of course will be process reviews, it would be uh personal reviews, um, you know, setting up the initial performance reviews, setting the setting up things, things of that nature.

I will say after 60 days, the gloves come off, we're at work, and it's time to get to it.

Fair, thank you.

Any other questions from the audit commission?

Yeah, I've got Levon Martin.

Uh excuse me, I've got one more.

So one of the items on your um resume is and it's a it's a lot of good items on there.

Uh there's a bullet under senior government grants audit that says assist in training other auditors by acting as a group lead on large complex audits and explaining auditing standards, policies, and procedures.

So uh can you give us some flavor on what uh what uh just a broad example, certainly not anything confidential, but broad example on uh what would be a large complex audit and how you go about training um auditors as a group lead.

Well, um a large complex audit would be in a from a government in the and from a government perspective working with DHS, it would be one of those contracts that have a lot of entities, a lot of separate entities.

Let's say like like for instance, boys and girls club of America.

That would be one.

To where one that um there's a lot of different buildings and uh that work they work together to audit one, you're gonna have to audit more than one because you the the receipts and the exchanges and finances sort of cross over.

Um you're saying between different boys and girls clubs who who get who maybe get grant money from grant money DHS, yes, DHS tenant tenant funds, right?

Things of that nature.

So what the lead in that in that situation would say, okay, there's inventory, there's build there's inventory, and then there's let's say there's finance, and then there's may there may be depending on the in the contract that may be some travel allowed.

Then there's travel for training that's allowed.

So you're auditing against specific government standards, correct?

Yeah, and then within the actual grant, the written written document.

Exactly.

So I would take that that information, I was I would split those different sections that have to be tested.

I was I will split those sections up and I would um and I will give them to different auditors.

So you would actually do the determine the split up and and who they got assigned to.

Yes.

Okay, which yeah, definitely qualifies as supervision.

Okay, yeah.

Yeah, right.

Okay.

Okay, very good.

Thank you.

I've got one follow-up.

Just um maybe just a little bit about your how you prioritize uh task as you know, our city is set up, you're you work for the board of directors, which you've got seven bosses, and then you also have the audit advisory committee and the the staff of the city.

So just if you get conflicting duties or conflicting things to work on, just tell us a little bit about how you maybe prioritize that and kind of work through those type of things.

Okay.

Well, the first thing I I definitely believe is is using all the tools that you have.

You have a calendar, you have cell phone, you have notebook paper.

I believe in writing it down.

Um if I was to speak with one person over here, I'm not going to try to remember everything they say.

I'm going to write it down because I know that I have to compartmentalize that conversation and that line of responsibility.

Because I'm going to come back over here and I'm going to talk with someone else.

And I may have uh, you know, like a kid in c in high school with the trapper keeper, and remember traffic keepers.

You got all these different folders.

Yeah, for every supervisor, I have another folder, and I keep track of those things.

Uh each individual thing that they tell me or or everything that they uh have for me to do, all the responsibilities, I keep them separate.

Um I I do believe in using the calendar.

I do believe in uh just um setting reminders, uh, setting an alarm, uh, got this have going on, have that going on over there.

And one of the best things that is communication.

Open lines of communication.

If I'm working with you on something and I'm sitting down and I'm taking notes and you say, Hey, I need you to be here on this day this time, the bell goes off, I already have an appointment.

Well, I need to be able to speak with you about that.

Just have an open line of communication with those who I work for to say, oh, I have this over here at that time.

Is there another time that we can do this?

Or is there another way for me to be present?

You know.

Just basically being open.

And um, because I I've had people that work with me and say it and then they say I asked them something happened.

They don't show up or something else happens.

I said, Well, why you didn't tell me?

Well, I didn't know what to say.

I said, just say it however you say it.

You know, hey, I'm gonna be somewhere else.

It doesn't matter.

Just tell me.

As long as you can communicate it to me, I'm fine.

Okay.

Well, then other questions from our audit committee.

If not, thank you all for being here.

Mayor, at this time, I'd like to make a motion that we could go to executive session.

Just uh know a couple of directors have scheduled with their work that they I want to make sure that we can give some time for due diligence as well for executive session with James Cruz.

You know, we're gonna go to the back room.

Okay.

And if you would, you can join us.

Uh isn't how to clear people developed it to do it, just hold out the world and looking for something that's small without you know they have this objective to is this okay?

You know, you know, all it for example, um public county, and there's a little audit program for each section of the financial statements.

And uh same, same as true of control audit, although sometimes it audit you uh you get into areas you've never been into before, and you're part of it learning about uh the area instead, and then then you kind of take it after you learn about the area you develop, you know, what are the what are the risk areas in this department and what are the uh what are the steps we need to go about to uh status of those risk and the control processes for that's obviously it's a very it's it's a very very structured federal uh it should but it's a law that says you must do this, and then you devise how you go back making that assessment.

What did you think about the same preempt?

So we'll just take a recess that way, you're free to move about.

Okay.

Okay.

We're going to reconvene uh the city board of directors meeting.

Uh and at this time we um we have uh someone else who's going to be with us to interview for the uh honor position.

And so at this time we will um yield to um our audit committee.

And again um with our first candidate, I would like for you all to introduce yourselves and then we'll let you make some opening comments uh to the audit committee.

Turn your microphone.

I'm I'm Lamon Morton, and uh my background is uh um I was uh CPA with Arsenal Young Little Rock for twenty-four years, came up here and worked as an auditor for Artbest for about fifteen years.

Um I've been a member of the art committee for a long time.

So um thank you for coming to uh interview with us today.

Yes, I'm Russ Bragg.

I'm retired from okay foods after thirty-six years as an executive.

I've been on the audit committee now for two years.

CPA uh did about twenty-five years at Baldur along the way, was the director of internal audit there.

So a little practice in the field.

Hi, Manda.

Hi, Amanda, I'm Dina Infield.

I'm the chair of the audit advisory committee, and I'm a practicing CPA here in Fort Smith.

So thank you for being here.

Okay, thank you.

Amanda, would you like to make any opening comments and then we'll turn it over to our audit committee for any questions they may have.

Sure.

So I'm Amanda Strange, I'm a CPA.

I started my career at BKD here in Fort Smith.

So I have been here almost 18 years and went to school at Arkansas Tech.

I grew up in Moldro, so always been around in this area.

Um I've been an audit director at Forvis Mazars, and worked a lot in a lot of different fields, primarily commercial, which is you know, most of those places that you see out businesses in the community.

Um recently I've worked with um electric cooperatives uh those in those rural areas in Arkansas and Missouri, and um excited to be here and answer any questions that you guys have.

Okay, thank you, man.

Just now we'll go to our audit committee.

Okay.

We'll get it started.

Thank you again for being here.

Um I'd like you just to kind of opening and just you tell us a little bit about what you've been doing.

Uh from reading, looking over your resume, it seems like it's more of you know, external auditing, but kind of what if your experience in any is in internal audit, but then how you feel like kind of what you have done would translate, and then also just talk about your risk assessment uh experience, how you've done as far as setting risk and and auditing them.

Um so first with internal audit, um, there are various times where I have worked from as the external auditor worked with that company's internal audit team.

Um, and that ranges from, and you guys are not those internal audit guys, um, you know, we can rely on internal audit and like or just like rely on their work or work directly with them and like give them the instructions of what to do.

So very familiar with that from that aspect.

Um I have also actually sometimes earlier in my career, we would a company might need some assistance, and we would provide someone to go out in in the field and actually work as part of that internal audit team directly.

Um, and so I have worked with a few different uh large companies in our area, Northwest Arkansas, um, and so I have been exposed to what it is like to work in that internal audit environment, worked with those heads in that internal audit department and got more of an understanding of what those kind of um relationships are because it is different being from an external auditor versus an internal auditor, but you're still at that service mode.

I mean, it's still what are your objectives, they're outlined, and what are you gonna do to meet those objectives?

Um I forgot the second part of your question.

I'm sorry, I should have written it down.

What was that second question?

Sorry.

Just talk about a little bit about your risk assessment assessment process and kind of how you've done that, both externally or in as part of the internal audit over the years.

And so whenever you're looking at any kind of financial statements or compliance procedures, and it's very important to determine what can go wrong.

I mean, and that's really what we're talking about when we talk about risk with financial statements or compliance or any kind of audit that you're performing.

It's really looking at it from a practical standpoint of understanding what is this project, what is this company, what is this department, and understanding what are they doing and then what what can go wrong.

I mean, what is the goal of the information that's being produced and who's relying on that information and really digging down into determining where could something go wrong?

Where can I add value to this organization?

Um, and that's just part of where I think it's that's really the crucial key is really determining what can go wrong and and then setting your plan from that point of knowing that everything that I do, if it's not addressing that risk, why am I doing it?

And really understanding um is it important?

Because I think that's where a lot of people can kind of get off track.

Is you think, oh, this is interesting, this might be important, but in the big scheme of things, is it important?

I think to always have that critical mindset of determining what is my goal, what am I working to, where is the risk, that that's really key to that point.

Speak a little bit about also your kind of reporting and task tracking.

I mean, just you know, keeping once you get to where you're at, getting it reported, but then also tracking what you've got in progress, you know, if you work on one audit versus 12 at the same time and go from there.

Absolutely.

That project management piece of it is very important.

Um, what I have been used to at Forvis Mazars is not working on one audit.

I mean, what my audits tended to be smaller projects versus like an SEC company where you're working on that all year round, and there's so many components to it, it's a different kind of busy than what I typically did, which was to have multiple clients at one stage or the or the other during the audit.

And really, it is uh it's hard sometimes to keep track of that.

So you really have to to advance in your career, come up with a system of how to do multitasking, but not so much multitasking that you get that you lose focus.

So that's making good notes so that whenever you put something down and have to come back to it and pick it back up, you remember what it was that you were doing in the first place.

Um so that project management is very key to that.

Um, and that also really helps.

If you have good notes, then when you get to the end and you say, okay, well, I've done all this work, now I'm gonna report it to someone, then you have something that you can rely on a reliable document to come back and do whatever kind of reporting that's required.

What I did with most of my clients is we would write the financial statements, and so we did a lot of those writing of the financial statements, which gets into a bunch of gap requirements as you know, and whatever is happens to be in those footnotes, and always making sure that the information in those footnotes matches back to your statements.

Um top of that, I also did a lot of um employee benefit plans, and so um over the years the DOL has gotten more and more strict about more of compliance aspect of that.

So that really is having because a lot of employee benefit plans, 401k plans, you find lots of things that might be wrong with that, and those are required to be reported in a formal letter to management.

So that is not only knowing that there is an issue, but incorporating of this is the issue, this could go wrong, and then writing that in a formal manner that is compliant with those statutory requirements, but also add some value to management so that they understand it in terms that are not just accounting speak.

I mean, I try to always, whenever I'm communicating, take a step back and say who is my audience and make sure that those answers are customized to that audience rather than just throwing standards at them that nobody wants to read accounting standards except a few crazy people of us.

Thank you.

Um and I wanted to just clarify you know, Forvus is our external auditors for the city, and just clarify from your standpoint under the independent standards that you've not been on that audit team and that there would be no conflict of independence from that area.

I definitely have not been in the last several years.

I may have had a few charge hours here and there.

I think when I was an intern, I may have worked on the airports audit, um, which is kind of a reporting unit to the city, but not anything in an executive level capacity, and that would have been over the last eight, 10 years.

Thank you.

Right.

Uh yeah, great.

Um one of the pieces I see the financial side, and obviously I'm not a CPA, I didn't come from that world, so but I'm more of a process control type person, and one of the things I did admire that the city had done and made great strides in was a lot of the process audits, looking at the processes, which is prevention.

So you got the right steps in place, you got the right pieces in place.

Can you tell me a little bit about your background and your thoughts on process audit, process control, and then like risk assessment?

One of the internal audit teams that I worked with, that was that was my focus when I was working for them, and it was um it was several weeks where we worked on that project, um, and it really was more of an SEC mindset of looking at those um controls from that standpoint.

But before you before you get to that control aspect, you have to understand those processes.

And one thing that we really focus on in in every audit, you know, from a financial statement audit standpoint for your information, um, you have to do a risk assessment of those financial statements.

But you know, really you're looking at what's feeding into those financial statements, and all of those start with that process.

And we look at that and we have to make a decision of what is process and what is control, and really the kinds of clients that I worked on tended to have smaller accounting groups, and so we really added uh acted as a consultant at that point to help them understand what are your controls versus what is a process.

So I'm very familiar with um trying to delineate those whenever I look at something and say this is a process, this is a control, but every piece of that it goes hand in hand.

So to say that you know, when we're looking at you know accounts receivable, accounts payable, in order to know if that control is working properly, you also have to understand that process that happened before it got to the control.

Okay, great.

And then uh, you know, um why does this opportunity excite you?

What what what makes you want to come join the Fort Smith team?

What what what is it about the job or the opportunity kind of in your words, what do you what would you look at like that?

I will I will be 100% honest with you and say when I saw the this posting this time, um I had been just started my job search because I had decided I'm gonna leave Forest Mazars.

And I looked at that and I said, you know, I with some of the controversy that's happened, I probably don't want to do that.

And then um the recruiter reached out directly to me and said, Would you be interested?

And I looked at that and I was like, no, no, I'm not interested in that.

And then as I was talking to a really good friend who's a CPA, and and I thought, was I too fast to just dismiss that out of hand?

And as I was talking with her and we were talking about some of the downsides of the job, I realized, you know, I am a resident, I love this community, I love my house, I love being here, even with all the faults that we have, every place you live is gonna have some faults.

But what I looked at that and thought, I would I would want someone like me to be in this position to someone who has worked with a lot of different companies, has seen a lot of different places, worked with a lot of people to help be in this position to be someone who can make things better and really give back to my community with the technical side that I have built up over these last couple decades.

I felt like this would this would be a perfect way for me to give back.

And that's that's where I landed.

It's when I said, okay, let's go for it.

Great, thank you.

Okay.

Um, in your job, you you said you um at different times manage multiple audit engagements going on at the same time in different stages.

So tell tell me how you go about staff oversight and supervision, because it's important to know that in this job, the director of uh of uh internal audit for the city, right now there are three employees in the department with varying levels of audit experience and skill.

They're all to some degree learning as they go along, and an important part of the director's job is to help those people learn and to manage the process they're doing.

So tell us about your experience in staff oversight and supervision.

So an audit, a typical audit that I would work on, it would have me as the engagement executive, and then an in-charge, that person who is managing things from the level right below me, in contact with the client, managing information and gathering those documents, doing procedures, and then another person underneath them who is a new typically a new person one or two years out of college.

So I look at that as a two-fold process.

One is managing the job, the project, and one is managing the people.

And they're two separate things because I wouldn't everybody is different.

Everybody needs to be managed differently.

And so I would get to know that person, understand their strengths and weaknesses, and really focus my management techniques to that person.

But I would manage the projects pretty much the same, which is keeping lists, knowing when deadlines are, taking that deadline and working back to build out a plan with reminders, calendar reminders, always a must.

Very fast moving, always something to do, and it's really easy to let things fall into the cracks.

But you know, from our standpoint, if I can get that person to do their job really well, makes my life a whole lot easier, and um they may need something like a daily check-in or multiple times to check in, versus another person who has more experience who knows what they're doing that I don't have to check in with them as often.

So it's really looking at that situation and making a decision on what's the best way to do that, and then structuring myself with reminders lists, daily tasks to make sure that they're doing their job, and that makes what I have to do a lot easier.

Okay, just to follow up on that, and then I have one more question.

But so how long would you say you've been involved in uh supervising and and staff oversight?

How how many years?

I would say I in charge my very first job.

This might be a little earlier than your question.

I was about six months in, so it was back in 2008.

So in all the years since then, yeah.

Okay.

So my second second question is a little different.

So you know, can you describe a situation where um you had a disagreement with a client over a uh either an accounting standard application or say a weakness in internal control or anything uh of a nature that would involve a disagreement and how you handled that and how it was resolved and how your relationship was with that person or that client going forward.

I that's always a delicate situation, and some more delicate than others.

I mean, when when I talk about getting to know your your staff, you also need to get to know that client or whoever you're reporting to and and understand what's gonna be an issue and what's not gonna be an issue.

There are some people that just they're fine, they don't care about like an internal control problem.

Um, but then there are others that are very sensitive.

So my my um the way that I approach that is to try to anticipate what their reaction will be and then try to um make it as soft as possible on that landing.

Um time in particular that I'm thinking about is um it was more of a potential to be an issue of um you know we we go to to that person to say that that they had a they had a problem, they had an internal control, not just a deficiency, a significant deficiency, which you've got three levels.

There's the really bad one, then also bad one, and the the pretty okay one, and we were at that middle level, and they were one that were very could have taken it very badly.

So we come in there and we say, okay, worst case scenario, this is this is the worst case scenario, this is who it's reported to here very clearly is the standard that you did not meet, and this is what we have to do with it.

So my approach is to be up front with it to try and get ahead of any anticipated problems and talk with them, hear them out of what their concerns are, and then do my best to address it.

But it in my field of where I've been working with, a lot of times there are just there's a hard standard.

That's that's the answer.

And you can't you can soften it as much as you can, but I can't make that standard say something different, and that's that's the reaction.

I I can't change it, but I will do my best to mitigate anything that I can.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah, so I'll just um say thanks for applying for the position, and uh I really appreciate the candor you had in your response to Russ as to why you want this job.

I think your response is probably the feelings that drove you to do that are probably the same feelings that a lot of people in this room have when they decide to give up their time and talent to help our community.

So uh thanks for that, and congratulations on a nice career, 18 years in in the field of public accounting is not uh is not an easy one.

So um I had about two years, and that was all I needed to decide that it was I needed to do something else.

So the tenacity to knock that out is to get that far is is fantastic.

So I have a question about the the role with Forvis and them being the external auditor, not so much your ability to engage uh in this capacity, but you know, when as we decide what work we want the audit group to do, this group decides a lot or plays a heavy role in in approving the um annual plan and what projects we're going to to pursue going forward for the audit group to knock out, and you know, the quality of the projects that we select is very important, and um what I'd like to see us ultimately able to be able to do as a group and as a city is identify key projects that are important on the internal side, but then also contemplate the ability to um engage on behalf of Forvis and use our staff as field audit auditors for Forvis in an effort to reduce our fees, and you know, the fees the fees just as you can imagine go up and go up and go up.

And so what we've never done in the past is utilize our own staff for uh the external audit uh performance.

And so, what would your thoughts be around being able to do that?

And have you had that kind of work before you mentioned you'd work with internal audit some, but kind of tell me your thoughts on on that.

I think that there's an effective way to do that, and then there's ineffective ways to do that.

My experience, which I've had of several different clients that have had an internal audit department, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

Really, it depends on the willingness of the internal audit department to really engage and commit to doing that because you know, from one of my constant um issues to deal with as an external auditor, is that those clients they have they already have a day job.

I mean, they've got their responsibilities that they have to do on a daily monthly basis, and it really depends on how willing they are to help get the audit done.

So I would say from my standpoint, I have seen it go not well, and I've seen it go great.

And so I think that that's really if you have if that internal audit department has the willingness to do it and figure out how to make everything work, I think that's where you're most successful.

Um I think that getting a good defined list of things that that external auditor wants to see, the communication on getting those procedures defined, that's absolutely key as well.

And I definitely think being on the external audit side of it, I understand what the goal is and how to really utilize that internal audit department to meet those goals.

So I I think I would be very effective in being that.

Um I obviously I have no idea what the the fees are or any control in I have no decision making over those fees, but I would do my best to be straightforward and say, okay, what is it that's gonna save you external auditor time?

What can I do to make your job easier?

Um because I rarely got asked that question.

I could have answered it to an internal audit department in a second.

Um so I think taking that approach to it would be the most effective way to go about it.

Yeah.

Okay, thank you.

Just uh, you know, uh I'm as I said earlier, I'm kind of a sports fan kind of guy, you know, so I know football is coming up and you know, at the beginning of every game, you got a game plan.

So, you know, you're you would be you're you know the one that's blessed with this opportunity, you got a game.

What is your game plan?

What's your thoughts on what your first 90 days would look like?

Information gathering.

I think you know, going back to some of my earlier comments, I don't know what I don't know.

And so you have to get those key key players, so department heads, um, and really sit down with them and have a conversation and kind of ask them the same question of what can we be doing that would make your life better?

What what is an area in your department that you have concerns about that you think doesn't work well, and let's go try and figure out if we can make that department run better, make things more efficient, uh, happier employees gives you better turnout in their job performance.

So I think that would be my focus, you know, in those first 90 days is to say, what have we done in the past, what has been effective, and what has been not effective, and try to lessen those not effective procedures and put more weight on those more effective procedures because I imagine that those department heads have a memory of all these past years of audits and they know what went well and what didn't go well, and then taking my experience and applying to see is there any bias in any of this?

Are there areas that we have never looked at that maybe we should be looking at?

And just taking that approach of let's lay out all the cards on the table, see what we have, and where should what should we do, and take that kind of overarching approach rather than going from down up, we need to go from up down.

Just kind of a follow-up question to my first one.

But uh the uh your experience in your background, you know, you know, 18 years of doing that.

Um does that experience and that can you are you gonna be able to draw strength you know and talk about some of the challenges that you know we have, the opportunities like all you know, opportunities that exist.

Uh but do you believe that your background and the training uh and your understanding that's going to provide you with the testal fortitude you're gonna need to be able to kind of go into that gauntlet, is you would say?

Well, I would say we always joked that opportunities was a bad word.

You never wanted an opportunity.

Um but yes, I I worked with a lot of different clients.

I mean, not just commercial clients, um, construction clients.

I've worked on hospitals, I've worked on sit some cities, um, and some financial institutions.

So really I've got a really broad background of a lot of different kinds of clients.

Some of them are easier to work with than others.

One of the things that I think has made me successful is that I can work with pretty much anybody.

I mean, part of it is knowing when to shut your mouth and let them speak.

Um, I've been yelled at, I've been had bad things said about me.

People are going to be people in the heat of the moment, things are going to happen, things are going to be said.

Don't let that get you down.

That's kind of my motto of that everybody's got an opinion, and I don't have to agree with that opinion.

And so as long as I think I'm doing an okay job, and I think that I have done my very best, I've worked my hardest, I know that I'm okay with what I've done, I think that this is the right decision, then I can sleep at night.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

Just kind of ask um you speak a little bit about your prioritization skills and kind of the way you would handle that.

I mean, it's part of our city.

You kind of have seven bosses that are directors, but you're also working the department heads, the direct the city administrator, us as the audit advisory committee.

So just speak a little bit about your prioritization if you have differing priorities that you're dealing with and juggling.

That is something that you do get very familiar with in public accounting because you know, as you're coming up, you're a first-level staff, and you've got your in-charger working with that day, and you've just got really your one boss.

And then as you get further along, you you get to that in-charge position where you're running those multiple projects and you have potentially a different partner or manager on every one of those jobs, and that was something that I had to learn how to do.

It was not natural to me.

Project management not did not come natural to me.

And so I had to develop my ways to, and that's part of why I make lists.

I love my list, could not live without my lists.

And it's part of having that list is you can't have a static list.

That list needs to be reprioritized daily, maybe more than once a day.

And so that's that's part of my way that I deal with that is I say, okay, what's important right now?

Just let's put everything down, and let's take a deep breath and decide what is my most important task right now.

And that is what's urgent, uh, what's on a deadline, and what is in that bucket of it's really important, but there's no real deadline, but it has to get done at some point, and realizing that has to be in my list somewhere.

And to reprioritize, I think reprioritizing is more important than prioritizing because things do change, things shift.

Um, as I got older into that more executive role, it's it becomes a balance of having resources of who's going to work on what when, and that's a discussion that's had at that executive level.

So within my organization, it's kind of like working with that many different bosses.

I mean, we four of us Mazars was a partnership, and so you've got that partner group, and you know, they're like at the top, and you got to get their permission to do, you know, change something like that.

So very familiar with working in that dynamic environment where you do not just have one boss.

You have several different bosses.

You've got your staff that you're uh that you're accountable to, and you've also got your clients out here who are your real bosses who can fire you from that job that you also have to manage everything and work together with.

So very familiar with having that dynamic group.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um Stanford could just like to make a motion.

We could go to executive session as the directors need to extraditionally move through their day for their work and like to make sure that we can include Ms.

Strange in that process.

Okay, very good.

Okay, thank you all very much.

Thank you.

Would you join us?

It's just time we're gonna reconvene our regular meeting.

And there was no action taken.

Um Director Champion recognized.

Thank you, Mayor.

I'd like to make a motion uh to add an executive session for the purpose of internal audit uh offer of employment.

Uh following our study session this coming Tuesday.

How many do you need four?

Okay, I think we have the numbers.

I'm asking for for that meeting to happen on Tuesday.

So we'll be a special meeting.

Okay.

Is there any further business?

If not, motion to adjourn.

Thank you very much.

Thank you for being here.