The Roger Brooks International Agreement Community Assessment will be coming to Carbon County. During the regularly scheduled commission meeting hosted Wednesday evening, Commissioner Jae Potter spoke on this, stating that through the tourism department, TRT and restaurant funds, the county is able to participate in this assessment with matching funds from the state.
This is an opportunity to have an outside firm visit Carbon County and assess the community at large. They will shop throughout the county, do a presentation and host a meeting for members of the community to be announced in the future. This assessment will provide an opportunity to see what is working in the community as far as tourism and economic development. By being approved by the commissioners, it would allow for them to move forward and receive matching funds from the state and gain community input.
“I think it would be very good for us as a county,” Potter stated.
Commissioner Jake Mellor asked about the cost and it was learned that the total is $25,000, of which half would be paid through the state. This assessment was approved by the commissioners.
Also decided at the meeting was the contract for a certified public accounting firm to provide auditing services to the county. A request for proposals and qualifications was previously released and two firms applied. One firm was stationed in Salt Lake City with the other being Smuin, Rich and Marsing, a local business.
A particular audit is required by the state each year that includes a sampling of county functions, cash control, purchasing and so forth. This is required to be completed and filed timely each year. The prices that came back were a difference of $55,000 to $39,000, the latter being proposed by Smuin, Rich and Marsing.
The commissioners duly acknowledged the previous requests from members of the community to bring a new auditor in. However, it was decided that, due to the large difference in the prices, Smuin, Rich and Marsing was ultimately decided to be the better firm. The commissioners did state that in addition to the higher cost, a general ledger audit of the county books would be an additional amount of over $100,000.
Smuin, Rich and Marsing was approved by the commissioners to perform the audit.