Marco Audit Committee Reviews Clean Audit, Repeated Weaknesses and Attendance Dispute

Marco Island’s Audit Advisory Committee reviewed the City’s fiscal year 2025 audit Thursday, receiving a clean audit opinion while also hearing that two material weaknesses identified last year were repeated in this year’s audit.

The July 9 meeting opened with controversy over whether committee member Chris Ricci could legally continue serving after missing three of seven meetings. The issue had been raised during Monday’s City Council meeting, when council members questioned Ricci’s continued participation, noting that the City ordinance says a seat shall be automatically vacated when a member misses 30 percent of meetings within a 12-month period. City Manager Casey Lucius said she chose to look past the attendance issue because the Audit Advisory Committee meeting was time sensitive and Ricci’s participation was needed to establish a quorum.

Ricci acknowledged the absences and apologized to the committee. He said one absence was caused by a deposition that could not be moved. He also said he believed it was important for him to attend Thursday’s meeting so the committee would have a quorum and could complete its review of the audit.

Outgoing Chair Gene Siegel said it was not the committee’s role to monitor attendance or determine whether a member should be removed. He said the committee’s responsibility was to maintain a quorum, and that any attendance issue was for City Council to address.

The issue returned during public comment, when Marco Island resident John Martini said Ricci’s participation violated a City ordinance. Martini cited the City code provision stating that if a committee member is absent from 30 percent of meetings held within any 12-month period, the seat shall be automatically vacated.

“As simply as a citizen standing here before you, it makes me wonder what is the motivation,” Martini said. “The gentleman is also running for City Council, and it makes me wonder what is really going on. And it involves more than just the code regarding this particular situation. It involves codes throughout the city, because it seems this city has a way of looking at codes, and when they don’t really do what they should be doing, or you don’t want them to, they somehow just get ignored or put aside.”

Committee members also discussed the difficulty of scheduling meetings around an audit timeline that kept shifting. Siegel said the committee had intended to review the audit earlier, but the audit was not ready. Although the City met its June 30 filing deadline, the committee was unable to review the audit before it was filed, as originally planned.

The audit itself brought mostly positive news. The City received an unmodified, or clean, opinion on its financial statements for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2025. The City also received a clean opinion on compliance for the state single audit, with no material weaknesses or significant deficiencies in the grant program tested.

However, the City again received two material weaknesses related to audit adjustments. CLA, the City’s auditor, explained that the findings do not mean money was missing or that the City’s financial statements are unreliable. Instead, adjustments had to be made during the audit to ensure the statements were correct.

Committee members questioned whether the weaknesses were caused by staffing shortages, lack of expertise, inadequate procedures, or a combination. City staff said the issue was partly an unrealistic closing schedule and partly the fact that the Finance Department did not have enough staff to complete the year-end closing work and audit preparation on the expected timeline.

The committee also discussed concerns about the City’s grant tracking. CLA said grant management remains a challenge because each grant can have different rules, deadlines and documentation requirements. The auditor recommended that the City create a stronger grant management process involving finance, procurement, operations, City management and legal review.

Despite the repeated weaknesses, committee members and the auditor emphasized that the City remains financially sound. The auditor said the type of weaknesses identified would not be expected to affect the City’s credit rating unless the City failed to take corrective action.

The committee also elected new leadership. Elena McFann was elected chair, and Daniel Kastholm was elected vice chair. The committee is expected to take part in a July 13 workshop with City Council and plans to move its next regular meeting from August to September.