BY ADAM ATKINSONNorth Country This Week

POTSDAM — The village is looking for a new firm to complete its annual fiscal audit.

Village Administrator Isabelle Gates-Shult told board members at their meeting Monday, Oct. 22 that the municipality’s normal firm, Potsdam-based financial firm Pinto Mucenski Hooper VanHouse & Co., CPA's, PC, can no longer complete the audits due to staffing issues.

The village approved a resolution later during the meeting authorizing the administrator to circulate a request for qualifications among likely accounting firms who could do the job.

The village is searching for a firm that can conduct two audits, one for fiscal year 2022-2023 and for the current fiscal year, 2024-2025.

“We received news that our external auditor that is assigned to our annual audit is resigning and the firm does not have sufficient staffing to take over our 2022-2023 audit,” Gates-Shult said.

“So we have begun preparing the RFQ in anticipation of the approved resolution tonight,” the administrator said.

Gates-Shult said she and the village treasurer also have a meeting scheduled with a representative of an auditing firm who they met at the annual New York Conference of Mayors to get more information on what that company could provide.

Village board members have discussed at past meetings how the municipalities annual audit, traditionally available in February, has been late in recent years, sometimes not arriving until October.

As early as this past February, board members were discussing the lateness of last year’s audit and considering the idea of contracting with a new firm.