This single page “Management Letter” was never made public, nor was it ever intended to be made public. We were clued in to the existence of this letter when we came across an email within a records request that alluded to a letter with concerning findings on a particular date. We became concerned because, concerning findings had never been mentioned by the administration or the council. We surmised that if there were concerning findings, they were being held outside of the public realm, excluding the City Council as well.
On September 28th, FU’s investigator Brian filed the records request below.
Jennifer Pratt, the city’s interim CFO, who was assigned to our request, blew it off. She didn’t respond by the due date of October 13th, nor did she ask for more time to complete the task. She and the city chose to ignore our request.
On October 27th when looking at some of our outstanding cases we realized that this was well overdue. I had Brian immediately file an appeal to the state indicating that the city blew off this request and in his appeal he wrote, “it could be the most important piece of information the residents need to know on the fiscal solvency of the city.” We cc’ed the City Council and the Framingham Source on our appeal.
On October 28th, the city responded with three documents, and all three can be seen below…. but this management letter is key to everything.
The final line in the letter describes who should be aware of it and it’s contents. The letter was “intended solely… [for] …the use of management” and “should not be, used by anyone other than these specified parties“. The letter notes that the findings were not included in the audit report, “City of Framingham, Massachusetts, Independent Auditors’ Report on Basic Financial Statements and Required Supplementary Information, Year Ended June 30, 2020“, which was the report which was presented to city council and to the public.
THE FULL “Management Letter” WITH REPORT
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THE FULL “Independent Auditors’ Report on Basic Financial Statements and Required Supplementary Information, Year Ended June 30, 2020”
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THE FULL “Independent Auditors’ Report on Pension Plan Schedules, For the year ended December 31, 2019”
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