RUMFORD — Less than 60 people attended Monday night’s annual town business meeting in Rumford Falls Auditorium.

They were there to discuss the 40-article warrant and vote on the first four articles, which were to choose a moderator, accept the report of municipal officers for the year ending June 30, 2010, set the tax collection due dates, and set the salaries of various town officials.

Voting on the proposed municipal budget and several ordinances takes place at the polls on June 14.

According to the recorded meeting minutes, after electing Robert Cameron moderator, Cameron read Article 2 to see if the town would accept the municipal officers report.

Resident Candice Casey motioned to reject the town report.

Town attorney Thomas Carey then asked Cameron if he would have Casey state her reasoning, which she did.

“Because beginning on page 50, we have the town auditor report, which is invalid because the town auditor is not licensed,” Casey said.

She was referring to Harold Blake, whose license suspension she discovered through her own diligence and brought to Town Manager Carlo Puiia’s attention.

The accountancy firm license held by Blake of Hallowell, who owned Harold E. Blake Accounting Services, was revoked in 2009 by order of the Maine Board of Accountancy, in a two-vote move suspending that license back in November 2003.

Blake has continued to present himself to his clients as fully licensed to audit their accounts.

The company’s license revocation stems from a poor peer review of accounting practices in 2002.

In 2008, when Blake applied to the Board of Accountancy to renew his company’s license, the review board discovered that Blake never provided required documentation that he had completed a successful peer review following the poor performance reported in 2002, which was required in his 2003 renewal application and all subsequent applications.

Between 2007 and 2009, Blake was warned by letter at least three times by the New England Peer Review Program to provide the required documentation and did not comply.

In a 2009 order of the state licensure board, Blake’s applications of 2003 and 2008 to renew his firm’s license were denied.

Though acknowledging that his firm’s license was revoked in 2009, Blake disputes the board’s 2009 finding and insists he’s not breaking the law.

Continuing on Monday night, Casey said, “In fact, he was fined on May 24 $7,500 for doing our audits illegally.”

“His license has been permanently revoked and, therefore, all of the financial information in this report is in question,” she said.

“And, therefore, it is my opinion, until we can have a proper audit and all of this can be corrected, this report must be rejected,” Casey said.

Puiia then asked that Carey weigh in on the matter for a conditional approval of the town report.

“The new auditor is performing an audit at the moment and is almost complete, and I would just like (Carey) to chime in on what that would be like,” Puiia said.

Carey said Casey is correct, saying the audit in the town report is in question.

“There are legal proceedings that are developing and also there is action that’s been taken by the Board of Accountancy with Mr. Blake, and it recently came out that there may be more developing, which places in question his capability,” Carey said.

“They have determined that he was not licensed at the time he performed that audit and, perhaps, other audits as well.”

Carey then suggested that Casey amend her motion to conditionally accept the report with that section Casey cited as not accepted, so that the meeting could move forward.

“There are legal consequences for not accepting the report entirely,” Carey said. “I don’t think she’s questioning the whole report, just that one section.”

Casey, however, said she had a problem with that, especially when the report covered any financial information included in the report.

Puiia said Tuesday morning that voters followed Carey’s advice after a “big discussion.”

“We accepted it, conditional upon the new auditor’s report,” he said. “We’ll have to come back and approve the new auditor’s report at another time.”

tkarkos@sunjournal.com

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