Alna is ending a run of more than two decades with auditor William Brewer. Selectmen have switched from Brewer's accounting firm in Bath to one in Levant that offered to check the books for less than half the cost.

The board decided January 9 to go with Maine Municipal Audit Services' $3,300 bid. The price is good for each of the contract's five years. The deal starts with two years' probation.

Brewer bid $7,000 for this year's audit with no price named for subsequent years, selectmen said.

“It is a risk to go from something you know,” Second Selectman Jonathan Villeneuve said about the change in firms. “However, the savings are worth the risk.”

“That's the idea of putting it out to bid,” First Selectman David Abbott said.

Selectmen said Brewer has done a good job for Alna. They had mulled seeking bids for the audit in recent years, to be consistent with their policy to seek bids on non-emergency projects expected to break the $3,000 mark. But until this year, they had always determined there wasn't time. Alna ends its fiscal year January 31.

The audit drew two other bids, a $6,100 one from Wiscasset’s auditor, RHR Smith & Company of Buxton; and a disqualified, $4,750 one from Ron L. Beaulieu & Company of Portland. That bid wasn’t sealed, selectmen said.

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