Gardner City audit search committee finalizes core interview questions, schedules public candidate interviews

At a special meeting, the Gardner City audit search committee agreed on a core set of interview questions for candidates for the city auditor position and moved to schedule public interviews in the coming week. The committee also approved prior meeting minutes by voice vote.

The committee’s chair opened discussion on Item 2 — finalizing interview questions — and members repeatedly endorsed a target of about 10 core questions to ensure consistency across candidates. "The goal is to go to 10," one member said, reflecting the panel’s aim to balance depth and time. Members said the core questions should cover: the candidate’s understanding of the municipal auditor role and why they want to work for Gardner City; familiarity with municipal financial and auditing systems and GASB standards; experience conducting complex audits and identifying internal-control weaknesses; supervision and communication skills; and familiarity with employee-benefits or trust-fund management when applicable.

Councilor Mann moved to approve the previous meeting’s minutes as presented; Councilor Hegland seconded the motion, which carried by voice vote. The chair noted delays in preparing some minutes because of a building closure and a recent snowstorm and said outstanding minutes will be provided at a future meeting.

Clerk staff reported three candidates had replied and wished to be interviewed — identified in the meeting record as CA11, CA16 and CA2 — while three other applicants had not responded. Committee members discussed logistics for public interviews and agreed they must be recorded. "These are public interviews," a participant said, and the committee asked the clerk’s office and IT staff to confirm recording options for an expected video interview and other remote appearances.

On scheduling, the committee set a quick follow-up meeting for Tuesday at 5 p.m. to approve the final questions and a pre-interview description of the auditor role for inclusion in the packet; interviews were planned for late-afternoon and early-evening slots across two days (candidates and members discussed approximate windows of 4–7 p.m., with roughly an hour allotted per interview and brief buffers between interviews). One member suggested assigning two consistent questions to each panelist so each candidate receives the same prompts in the same wording.

Committee members also discussed asking candidates how they would communicate audit findings to three audiences — the city council, executive leadership and the public — and noted that municipal auditing differs from private-sector audit work. Members emphasized testing for practical problem-solving: several said the panel should ask candidates to describe a particularly complex audit they led, how they identified risks or errors, and what corrective actions they took.

The committee agreed the chair and assigned members would draft and circulate the consolidated question packet before the Tuesday approval meeting. Members also discussed practical steps for public access to remote interviews and asked staff to confirm whether the city’s Zoom account or Microsoft Teams would be used for recording.

The meeting concluded with a short discussion about assigning one member to approve final minutes for publication to avoid repeated convenings for minute approval. The committee adjourned following those items. The next procedural steps are the Tuesday approval meeting to finalize the packet and the subsequent public interviews currently planned in late-afternoon/early-evening blocks.