Agenda - Council - 09/13/2016 - Laserfiche WebLink

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City of Ramsey August 10, 2016 Page 7 These fees are based on anticipated cooperation from your personnel and the assumption that unexpected circumstances will not be encountered during the audit. If we find that additional audit procedures are required, or if additional services are requested by the City, those services will be billed at our standard hourly rates. Additional audit procedures might be required for certain accounting issues or events, such as new contractual agreements, transactions and legal requirements of new bond issues, new funds, major capital projects, new tax increment districts, if there is an indication of misappropriation or misuse of public funds, or if significant difficulties are encountered due to the lack of accounting records, incomplete records, or turnover in the City's staff. If significant additional time is necessary, we will discuss it with you and arrive at a new fee estimate before we incur the additional costs. With regard to the electronic dissemination of audited financial statements, including financial statements published electronically on your website, you understand that electronic sites are a means to distribute information and, therefore, we are not required to read the information contained in these sites or to consider the consistency of other information in the electronic site with the original document. If you intend to publish or otherwise reproduce the financial statements, such as in a bond statement, and make reference to our firm name, you agree to provide us with printers' proofs or masters for our review and approval before printing. You also agree to provide us with a copy of the final reproduced material for our approval before it is distributed. During the year, you might request additional services such as routine advice, assistance in implementing audit recommendations, review of your projections or budgets, and other similar projects. Independence standards allow us to perform these routine services; however, it is important that you understand that we are not allowed to make management decisions, perform management functions, nor can we audit our own work or provide nonaudit services that are significant to the subject matter of the audit. Please be aware that e-mail is not a secure method of transmitting data. It can be intercepted, read, and possibly changed. Due to the large volume of e-mails sent daily, the likelihood of someone intercepting your e-mail is relatively small, but it does exist. We will communicate with you via e-mail, if you are willing to accept this risk. To ensure that MMKR's independence is not impaired under the AICPA Code of Professional Conduct, you agree to inform the engagement partner before entering into any substantive employment discussions with any of our personnel. If a dispute occurs related in any way to our services, our firm and the City agree to discuss the dispute and, if necessary, to promptly mediate in a good faith effort to resolve it. We will agree on a mediator, but if we cannot, either of us may apply to a court having personal jurisdiction over the parties for appointment of a mediator. We will share the mediator's fees and expenses equally, but otherwise will bear our own attorney fees and costs of the mediation. Participation in such mediation shall be a condition to either of us initiating litigation. To allow time for the mediation, any applicable statute of limitations shall be tolled for a period not to exceed 120 days from the date either of us first requests in writing to mediate the dispute. The mediation shall be confidential in all respects, as allowed or required by law, except that our final settlement positions at mediation shall be admissible in litigation solely to determine the identity of the prevailing party for purposes of the awarding of attorney fees.