Mayor Keith Gaskin pushes his financial proposal despite disagreements

Columbus city council voted against having a forensic audit to examine Columbus' finance

COLUMBUS Miss. (WCBI)- Columbus Mayor Keith Gaskin reacted to the city council’s vote not to move forward with his proposal for a forensic audit. The mayor had planned for two forensic audit firms to give presentations to the council at their meeting Tuesday, October 5th. A firm would have been selected on the October 19th meeting but a majority of council members rejected the proposal altogether. Some council members believe the money spent on an audit can be used in other departments such as the police force and public works.

Mayor Gaskin maintains that conducting an audit to review finances several years back would have been beneficial.

“It is very important that we move forward with a forensic audit and I am going to do everything in my power to make that happen,” said Mayor Gaskin. “If that means I continue to have to educate the council and the community about the issues that we are facing with our budget and with our past budgets, then I will do so. I am just not sure they are taking this as seriously as we should.”

Mayor Gaskin followed up by saying he will continue to reach out to the council and push for the audit.