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November 02, 2011 12:00 AM
WAREHAM ? Wareham has lost another town accountant ? this time before he even started the job.
After selectmen backed hiring Baystate Municipal Accounting Group Inc. to provide accounting services to the town, the firm has withdrawn its proposal, according to Town Administrator Mark Andrews.
The change in plans came amid questions about the firm's selection relative to requirements under the state's Uniform Procurement Act, which sets a standard course of action for municipalities when contracting for real estate, supplies, equipment and services.
The town had originally searched for an individual to fill the accountant post, which has been vacant since Andrews announced former town accountant Elizabeth Zaleski's termination in April, although she didn't actually resign until July as part of a settlement.
The pickings proved slim during two application rounds, when two people turned down the position and another candidate "had questions on whether or not she'd be able to handle the job "� due to ongoing audits and where the town stood financially," according to John Foster, the town's treasurer/collector and head of a screening committee.
But when Justin Cole of Baystate submitted his proposal, Foster told selectmen at a recent meeting "all of the members felt that this would be a good temporary fix for the immediate problem."
But the Uniform Procurement Act lays out "process specifics that must be followed when contracting for specific services with an accountant or an accounting firm (that likely were not followed in the town's process to hire an employee)," wrote Barbara Hansberry of the Inspector General's Office in an email. If the contract is estimated over $25,000, she wrote, the town "needs to develop a specification that outlines what it is looking for, it must be advertised and the award of the contract for services must be made to the lowest, qualified individual/firm that submits a bid. Another type of process, the (request for proposals) process, is also available for the town to use for contracts at this dollar threshold."
The Baystate contract selectmen approved was for $33,250 for up to 600 hours of work through the end of December. But "we didn't review other firms. ... We don't know if this is the best bang for our dollars," Selectman Cara Winslow said at a meeting last week before voting against the contract. "I'm pretty sure this needed to go out in an RFP and we didn't do that."
Andrews was unreachable for comment Tuesday. But, echoing an opinion he gave at the selectmen's meeting, he wrote in a memo to selectmen that "we relied on prior precedent at the inspector general to move ahead." A staff attorney, he wrote, "had formerly advised municipalities that firms such as (Baystate) providing (certified public accountant) like services would be exempt from the Uniform Procurement Act requirements."
Andrews says in the memo that this attorney has since left, and more recent "conversations with (inspector general) personnel ... about the continued application of this interpretation of the exemption yielded neither approval nor rejection of our ability to hire (Baystate) under the lengthy public process we followed ... " In the meantime, Baystate "withdrew its bid, stating it does not want to enter a new relationship under a cloud and that it is most careful about its reputation," he wrote. Cole was unreachable for comment. Officials are now soliciting proposals from accounting firms for a two-month contract, according to Andrews.
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