$1.66mm seems like a lot for a traffic signal at an intersection. I’m sure an auditor could find a at least a few interesting items to dig in to and validate.
Good thing that the township retained an actual CPA, then. It'd be sketch as hell if a fucking sci-fi author slash real estate agent was in charge of an audit.
Yes we all know that auditing firms are never thoroughly corrupt/incompetent, nobody could have foreseen Enron or Lehman Brothers (or loads of smaller scale cases)...
Oh come on. Nobody said it never happens, but do you have any reason to suspect Maher Dussel is corrupt or incompetent? Do you have any reason to believe this random guy is as qualified as a team of CPAs to audit public sector books?
He's probably not more qualified, but independent oversight of public expenditures serves a valuable purpose. A hired accountant has no incentive to point out that it might be wasteful or unnecessary to spend Y money on a thing X as long as everything is done by the book.
