ORIENT, Maine — The selectmen’s meeting for the town of Orient on Aug. 19 featured little on its agenda, but several residents of the town showed up anyway, hoping to use the public comments section of the meeting to raise questions regarding the town’s audit.
Orient, a town of fewer than 200 people, has not had an audit completed for any year after 2016. At the town’s latest annual town meeting, which had to be split into two separate meetings due to its length, the town’s audit situation was brought up several times, and drew heated remarks from both townspeople and selectmen.
Selectman Paul Lamach said at the Aug. 19 meeting he had been on the phone with auditors following a planning board meeting to help address the issue, but would not give any further details on the issue.
“I can’t say anything because nothing is confirmed yet,” he said. “But I’ve been in contact with some auditors.”
Ed Vose, a town resident who attended the selectmen’s meeting, claimed that Selectman Dale Foley Sr. was present when the calls were made, and therefore it should have been considered a public meeting.
“Any time there are two selectmen in the town office, that constitutes a public meeting,” said Vose. “If you guys come down to my camp, and the two of you are there, that’s a town meeting.”
Lamach disputed the idea, saying that he was the only one there who was conducting town business.
“There was no town meeting,” he said. “I was handling town business on the town phone. They [Dale and Deputy Town Clerk Mary Beth Foley] were here just by happenstance.”
In the 2016 audit, which was performed by the Presque Isle-based accounting firm Davis, Gates & Alward, the public accountants found the town was not depositing funds in a timely manner, did not maintain separation of duties in the accounting department and did not keep proper documentation of disbursements and abatements.
“We identified certain deficiencies in internal control that we consider to be material weaknesses and significant deficiencies,” the report noted. It defined the use of the term “material weakness” as a series of deficiencies to a degree that misstatements of the town’s finances had a “reasonable possibility” of not being prevented.
The 2016 audit itself was not completed until November 2018. The next selectmen’s meeting for Orient is scheduled for Sept. 23.
