Auditor presents clean FY2024 opinion; commissioners press firm over vendor payments and missing engineering contract

James Moore & Company partner Zach Shallow Ford presented an unmodified audit opinion for Melbourne Beach’s fiscal year ended Sept. 30, 2024, to the Town Commission during an April 30 workshop, but several commissioners pressed the auditors over town payments to an engineering firm that, they said, were made without a written contract.

Ford told commissioners the audit’s “core objective is to issue an opinion on the accuracy of the financial statements,” describing the engagement as a financial‑statement audit performed under AICPA and U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) standards and the Florida Auditor General’s rules effective September 2024. He said the firm obtained “reasonable assurance,” identified three post‑trial‑balance adjusting entries (sales tax and utility tax timing adjustments and a pension entry), and issued a clean (unmodified) opinion.

The exchange became contentious when Mayor Lisonbee Dennington and others raised a longstanding procurement concern: they said the town had paid an engineering firm (referred to in the meeting as BSC/VSE) approximately $350,000 over…