{"id":730,"date":"2017-03-31T03:50:03","date_gmt":"2017-03-31T07:50:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/?p=730"},"modified":"2017-03-31T03:50:03","modified_gmt":"2017-03-31T07:50:03","slug":"hiring-of-auditor-splits-toms-river-school-board","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/2017\/03\/hiring-of-auditor-splits-toms-river-school-board\/","title":{"rendered":"Hiring of Auditor Splits Toms River School Board"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"TRRS

TRRS Logo. (Credit: TRRS)<\/p><\/div>\n

The appointment of an auditor for the Toms River Regional school district split the board, with the current auditor being retained despite having submitted a higher bid.<\/p>\n

Wiss &\u00a0Company, of Livingston, was granted the $97,000 appointment following a 4-3 vote at a board meeting Tuesday night. Another firm,\u00a0Holman Frenia Allison, of Toms River, had submitted a bid $20,000 lower, leading three board members \u2013\u00a0Daniel Leonard, Joe Nardini and Christopher Raimann, to vote against the appointment of the firm. The remainder of the board voted in favor of retaining Wiss, which has served as auditor for three years.<\/p>\n

\u201cI voted against this because we had five proposals,\u201d said Leonard. \u201cWe interviewed three. Of the three I thought one was highly qualified and came in about $20,000 lower than the one we appointed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Board President Ben Giovine said the board\u2019s consensus was to keep the current auditor on the job.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe auditor that was selected this evening was the same one that we\u2019ve had for the last three years, and the general consensus was that since they have produced three audits for us there was no need to interview them, since we just accepted their audit,\u201d said Giovine. \u201cAt this point, when it comes to professional services, the thought was that we have an organization that was doing a good job in making sure our $230 million budget was properly looked after.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leonard, after the meeting, said Holman firm \u201chas a great reputation,\u201d and that he has experience with the firm through his job with the county government. He also said the firm conducted an audit of the district\u2019s finances after former Superintendent Michael J. Ritacco was charged and eventually convicted of stealing millions of dollars from the district.<\/p>\n

Giovine said the appointment was not pre-determined, and board members discussed, at length, which firm should have received the contract.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the last meeting, we were going to make an appointment, but we were all deadlocked,\u201d said Giovine. \u201cWith Wiss, one of the reasons they said they were a little bit higher was because they were spending more time in the district.\u201d<\/p>\n

Giovine also said political donations from the Holman firm filtered down to a board member \u2013 Leonard \u2013 who won a seat this year.<\/p>\n

According to the Election Law Enforcement Commission, Holman donated $2,000 to a political action committee known as\u00a0NJ Citizens for Conservatism which, in turn, donated $1,000 to Leonard.<\/p>\n

Giovine said it was important the auditor remain \u201cindependent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leonard said the firm was reputable, and he has never even met Frank Holman, one of the principals of the firm.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf the people brought in, they were the best,\u201d Leonard said. \u201cThey followed up on something that we had asked for, as an executive board, their presentation was great and they were $20,000 less.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Wiss firm did not donate to the campaigns of any board members, Giovine said.<\/p>\n

One resident,\u00a0Anna Polozzo, said\u00a0during a public comment portion of the meeting that the low bidder should have been selected.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are currently in a financial crisis,\u201d said\u00a0Polozzo. \u201cAnd while I don\u2019t believe in being penny wise and pound foolish, I don\u2019t think this is an area where it was worth spending the extra money.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The appointment of an auditor for the Toms River Regional school district split the board, with the current auditor being retained despite having submitted a higher bid. Wiss &\u00a0Company, of Livingston, was granted the $97,000 appointment following a 4-3 vote at a board meeting Tuesday night. Another firm,\u00a0Holman Frenia Allison, of Toms River, had submitted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":260,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,5],"tags":[286,285,11,64,284],"class_list":["post-730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-toms-river-schools","tag-auditor","tag-holman-frenia-allison","tag-toms-river-nj-news","tag-toms-river-regional-schools","tag-wiss-company"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/trschools_compass_LARGE.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}