The Atlantic City Council, Wednesday, approved the awarding of a contract for City auditing services to Gronewold, Bell, Kyhnn & Co., P.C., of Atlantic. Their decision followed discussion, and a recommendation by the City’s Personnel and Finance Committee. City Administrator Doug Harris said there were three bids for the three-year service (Fiscal Year’s 2014, ’15 and ’16). The other bidders included the State of Iowa Auditor’s Office, and Faller, Kinchloe & Co., PLC, of Des Moines.

Harris said Gronewold, Bell & Kyhnn are well qualified for the job and handle a lot of other municipal accounting jobs. He says their cost was slightly higher for the single audit then the other two firms, but when the cost is average for the three year contract, the cost is actually lower, and, it appears the other firms underestimating how long it would take to complete an audit, and therefore billed for lesser hours in their bid.

G,B & K’s combined bid for three-years of single audits was $42,150, which was just slightly higher than Faller and Kinchloe’s bid, and more than $4,000 less than what the State of Iowa had bid. G B & K’s FY 2014 single audit price was $13,750, and would take 220-hours. As a point of reference, the City’s FY 2013 audit cost $15,480, and took 260 hours to complete, including 28 hours for the single audit at a cost of $1,600.

In other business, the Council approved a 3% increase in compensation for non-union City employees (excluding the Wastewater Superintendent, whose compensation adjustment has already been approved by the Council). Doug Harris explained the 3% increase is the same increase granted to the two unions, and the funding increase for the adjustment was included in the adopted FY 2015 Budget.