When Great Barrington Town Manager Liz Hartsgrove came onboard in November 2025, she was inheriting a mess – specifically, a street restoration project that had come in hundreds of thousands of dollars over budget.
“One of the reasons that we wanted to hire Liz was we wanted an outsider's perspective on the way things were done at Great Barrington, and within the first few weeks of coming onto the job, Liz was able to come on and find things that did not meet standards of a municipal government," Selectboard Member Ben Elliott told WAMC. “She went to our finance committee, she talked to the select board, asked for permission to start this audit. It has been ongoing since early this year, and right now we are starting to get a full picture of exactly some of the liabilities that the town is facing as a result of things not being done the proper way.”
The report by chartered financial analyst William Scally of CBIZ Forensic Consulting Group has been made public, and Elliott says its findings present a tough look in the mirror for Great Barrington.
“It's something that we need to do in order to know exactly where we stand, so before we are able to go on to bigger projects, or even continue providing some of the services that we want to be able to provide, we have to know the true financial status of the town, and going through this audit and understanding exactly what we're facing is the very uncomfortable first step, but it is the first step,” he said.
In July 2024, Great Barrington hired Morais Contractors, Inc., to carry out street work in the Southern Berkshire community to the tune of $1,097,075. Almost two years later, the company took the town to court for just over $869,000 and interest for unpaid work beyond the original scope of the contract.
Scally’s forensic audit reveals a panoply of management issues around how Great Barrington handled the project’s finances, and what led to town residents being left with the tab. Those include poor documentation, backdating, increasing the town’s spending without clear appropriations, inaccurate project information, references to work being done on buildings not mentioned in contract (specifically the Mason Public Library), and purchase orders that came in higher than the reported sums in the town’s internal system. Some payment applications lack the required approval of a notary public, and the records of said payment applications present discrepancies in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Some purchase orders were missing department head or accountant signatures. None of the 12 payment applications include “documentation of the attestation and certification of funds, specifically identifying the funds allocated for the payment application.”
Great Barrington DPW Superintendent Joseph Aberdale – who continues to work for the town – signed all eight change orders to the contract instead the appropriate town employees: Former Town Manager Mark Pruhenski or Assistant Town Manager Christopher Rembold. Pruhenski left Great Barrington at the end of 2024. Rembold remains assistant town manager.
“It's an uncomfortable personnel matter, and I think there is work being done on town staff side to address that and make sure it's being done properly, with also in mind for transparency, to make sure that all of the information will be coming out to the voters,” said Elliott.
Among the many takeaways from Scally’s audit include his assessment that “the town potentially faces an increased risk of unsupported or disputed costs, diminished accountability over public funds, and difficulty demonstrating compliance with required review and approval processes in the event of audit, inquiry, or challenge.”
Town leaders like Selectboard Chair Steve Bannon are asking voters to approve the payout from the town’s cash reserves at a special town meeting on June 29.
“There was work done, some construction work done on various roads that money had not been appropriated, but the work was done. It was done correctly," he said. "So, we just need to ask the town if they're willing to appropriate the money.”
Elliott isn’t proud of what the audit has exposed about Great Barrington’s town government, but he says paying for the services rendered is the bitter pill the community has to swallow to move forward.
“The worst part of this is that it feels like we're shooting ourselves in the foot, or that we have shot ourselves in the foot, that this is money that shouldn't have to be paid if things have been done properly," Elliott told WAMC. "Making sure we have a municipality that is working properly so something like this never happens again- That is step one towards a sustainable future.”
