POLAND – A Massachusetts auditing firm plans to finish a re-audit of the town’s finances by March 1. It is a timeline that stunned many who attended an informational session hosted Thursday by selectmen.

“It’s nice that you can get the audit done in three weeks,” said Glenn Peterson, a former selectmen’s chairman who helped spearhead a recent petition for state involvement in Poland’s auditing records.

“Our present auditor has been working on it since September,” he said. “And we still haven’t seen it.”

James George, owner of a self-titled public accounting firm in Boston, was hired by the state to look over Poland’s auditing records after a little-used state statute, which allows state involvement in town auditing when a critical mass of residents asks for it, was forced by a petition signed by more than 500 residents.

“We just want to make sure our money is being properly spent,” said George Sanborn, who, with Peterson, helped push the petition.

“Obviously, we don’t feel that the board was looking out for the best interest of the taxpayers’ money,” he said.

Sanborn’s wife, Wendy, is a member of the Board of Selectmen.

An accounting error, discovered last February by an audit of the town’s books, left the town with a $2.7 million budget shortfall.

The town manager knew last January, Peterson said, and the auditor knew last February, yet the board was never told until after last year’s town meeting last April.

“It is just a sad situation that we have found ourselves with an unresponsive board and an unresponsive town manager,” Peterson said.

Like all towns, Poland figures its tax rate by comparing the money it needs to raise against the total amount of taxable property in the town. However, property meant to be shielded from the town’s value, via tax increment financing deals with the Poland Spring Water Co., was accidentally included in the calculation.

By doing that, the tax rate, just over $21 per $1,000 of valuation, was kept artificially low. Less money than budgeted was raised, since the taxes taken from the water company were, as planned, set aside for special projects.

Slowly, the town slipped into the red.

According to Bruce Nadeau, an auditor who performed Poland’s latest audit, the mistake likely went back several years and was due to the tax increment financing deal’s complexity.

“I don’t think we’ve had a good audit done for about six years,” said former Selectman Peterson. “We don’t know how much money we have.”

The state-financed auditor, James George, said his four-week audit will be completed in a short time because it will use the framework provided by past audits.

“We’re already starting ahead of the curve,” he said.

However, he cautioned that his three-man audit, which begins on Monday, would be thorough enough to catch any past mistakes.

“We’re making sure that what he did was correct,” George said. “I won’t rely on anything he did. If he missed steps, we’ll pick them up.”