Auditors give Westfield a clean 2024 opinion; council briefed on hotline and construction controls

Rick Wicker, a partner with Forbes Mazars, told the Westfield Common Council the firm issued two clean (unmodified) opinions on the city’s 2024 annual comprehensive financial report and found no material weaknesses or significant deficiencies in internal controls. “If you’re going to take away one thing from this presentation it is that it’s all clean, unmodified,” Wicker said during the May meeting.

Wicker said the firm also completed the single-audit review of approximately $6 million in federal grant expenditures (of which roughly $6.5 million related to COVID funding under the city’s major program testing) and reported no compliance findings. He noted one routine audit adjustment to reduce receivables and recommended a presentation change for the city’s economic development foundation to be reported as a discretely presented component unit, an immaterial presentation item made this year.

Mayor Willis and councilors thanked finance staff for the work that produced the clean report. Council discussion emphasized steps the city plans to take in response to the report’s nonbinding recommendations: establishing a fraud-and-ethics hotline and continuing the practice of using owner’s representatives on major construction projects. Wicker said hotlines are a commonly used tool to identify fraud or inappropriate activity and recommended staff education on vendor-fraud risks such as email-compromise schemes.

The audit presentation concluded with the auditor offering contact information and a timeline for beginning the 2025 audit, with a target completion of September 30, 2026. Council members asked follow-up questions about disclosures related to capital assets, long-term liabilities and pension/OPEB estimates, which Wicker said are standard areas of focus in municipal financial reporting.