The auditing firm that Tahoe Regional Planning Agency and Tahoe Transportation District use has been sanctioned by the state because of its involvement with the city of Bell.

It had been recommended that Mayer, Hoffman and McCann have its license suspended for six months. That recommendation was stayed. The auditing firm per the state Board of Accountancy must pay a $300,000 fine and is on probation for two years.

“After the Bell story broke, we performed a review of MHM’s audit and were confident in the quality of performance by our MHM partner and his team,” Kristi Boosman, spokeswoman for TRPA, told Lake Tahoe News. “Our partner from MHM is Marc Davis who will be here conducting our audit later this week. … he and his team were not connected with the Bell audit.”

Lake Tahoe News first wrote about TRPA using this auditing firm in September 2011.

“If you will remember, the state controller alleged that the audit of the city of Bell was not performed in accordance with the majority of government auditing standards and he identified numerous deficiencies. He referred the matter to the state board,” Davis said in an email to Boosman that she forwarded to Lake Tahoe News. “We disagreed strongly with the state controller’s findings. In response, the state board conducted its own investigation and identified only eight areas where the audit documentation for the city of Bell could have been improved.”

— Lake Tahoe News staff report