The City of Vicksburg’s audit for 2008 has been turned over to and accepted by the Board of Mayor and Aldermen.

The board voted 3-0 Tuesday to accept the audit, which was prepared by the Halford Firm of Vicksburg with the assistance of May and Company, also of Vicksburg, the city’s former auditors, and former city clerk and strategic planner Paul Rogers, who has since left the city’s employ for a third time.

The total cost for preparing audit for fiscal and 2008 comes to $431,527.

“I’m excited to see this,” Mayor Paul Winfield said, adding he expects to see the 2009 and 2010 audits completed by the end of May.

The board in February hired Memphis-based Booker T. Camper Jr. at a cost not to exceed $91,600 to perform the 2009 and 2010 audits.

“The auditing firm we hired to do the 2009 and 2010 audits is making progress,” Winfield said, but gave no date when the audits would be presented.

Winfield said an auditor has not been selected for the fiscal 2011 accounting, but he expects one to be named after the 2009 and 2010 audits are presented. He gave no date when the audit would start for 2011, though the fiscal year ended Sept. 30.

Winfield in December 2010 blamed delays in completing the city’s 2008 and 2009 audits as the reason the city’s Aa3 rating was placed on a watch list by Moody’s Investors Service, a New York-based credit ratings provider of credit ratings and risk analysis.

According to city records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, a breakdown of the costs for the 2008 audit had $167,500 going to Halford, $18,355 to May and Company, and about $245,672 to Rogers from July 2009 to February.

May and Company was hired in July. Its job was to help the city’s accounting office gather information, pull invoices, create spreadsheets and provide other support functions, city accountant Doug Whittington said when May was hired.

Rogers said the city fell behind on the audits in 2004 and 2005, adding the city had personnel issues that affected the process of preparing information for the audits. He would not discuss the personnel issues.

“Usually we had all the information gathered for the audits by Nov. 1,” he said. “But when you fall behind, it’s hard to catch up.”

In 2008, he said, the Board of Mayor and Aldermen hired Halford to do the fiscal 2007 audit, “and there is a learning curve when new auditor comes in.”

Also in 2008, the city went to a new accounting software called MUNIS to handle the city’s finances.

Rogers said the transition from the city’s old accounting software to MUNIS was part of the reason for the delay in preparing the 2007 and 2008 audits.

He said he had to use the old and the new software programs to get information required by auditors.

During the time the city was installing MUNIS, Halford owner Ken Halford said, accountants were having to comply with new auditing standards, which required auditors to go into more detail when going over financial records.

“We had different account numbers (under MUNIS),” Rogers said. “The auditor has an account number for one department under the old system, and we would have to look up the new account number on MUNIS.”

Another problem, he said, was scheduling with the auditors.

“The city would have its end done, and we’d call the auditors and they were unable to start,” he said. “They stay busy. They don’t sit around waiting for us.”