Commissioner calls for forensic audit of city purchasing after disputed $35,000+ buys

Commissioner Tender proposed a forensic audit of the city’s purchasing records, asking the review to start with the purchasing policies and to proceed one fiscal year at a time if the budget cannot cover a full audit. "I would definitely, like to propose that we do a forensic audit, and I would like them to start with, all the purchasing policies," Tender said.
The proposal grew from complaints Tender said she has received about several purchases, including a $70,000 uniform order that she said was split into two $35,000 transactions. Tender asked that the audit examine whether purchases above $35,000 were properly bid or were supported by sole‑source letters, state contracts or piggyback agreements.
Finance Director Kiki Roman confirmed the city routinely uses sole‑source vendors and state or piggyback contracts for some purchases and noted that some sole‑source procurements cannot be competitively bid. Roman also addressed a separate grant question raised in the discussion, saying the city had drawn about $777,000 from a roughly $1,000,000 grant awarded in February 2021 and that about $222,000 remained to be reimbursed and will be included in a future award agenda.
The city attorney advised that purchasing policies and any required bid or surplus procedures be reviewed and that, where a donated item carried conditions, the city must honor those conditions; otherwise the law requires declaring the item surplus before disposal. Commissioners discussed a $35,000 threshold as a possible starting point for audit scope and asked staff to draft specific language for a forensic‑audit request for proposals.
No formal motion or vote was recorded in the excerpt. Commissioner Tender said she, Kiki Roman and another commissioner would meet to draft scope options to present back to the commission and then solicit proposals from appropriate forensic firms.