Item 12 Contract to Cherry Bekaert Advisory LLC for Governmental Accounting Standards Board

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Cherry Bekaert Proposal for City of Santa Ana a. Cover Letter March 18, 2025 Sarah Ro, Accounting Manager City of Santa Ana — Finance and Management Services 20 Civic Center Plaza Santa Ana, CA 92701 Dear Sarah: Cherry Bekaert is pleased to submit this proposal for Governmental Accounting Standards Boards (GASB) No. 87, 96, and 101 consulting services to the City of Santa Ana (the City). The field of governmental accounting and financial management is dynamic for both the City and your external auditors and advisors. Pronouncements from the GASB can have significant impact on your internal accounting and external reporting, and maintaining compliance with current and upcoming standards is critical to public trust, effective decision making, comparability and benchmarking, and accountability to your constituents. At the same time, local governments are in an environment of accelerated change and greater expectations from the constituents they serve, combined with numerous operational and compliance issues that either contribute to or prohibit long-term growth and strategic success. In addition to new accounting standards, staffing shortages, uncertainty at the Federal level and increasingly complex grant compliance impose significant challenges on the City. In the face of these challenges, it is critical to have the right government accountant providing the proper technical guidance, reducing the demands on government staff and allowing organizations to focus on their constituents. To help, we have a national team of governmental accounting advisors and a GASB-as-a-Service offering covering new accounting standards consulting and implementation to financial close and ACFR preparation to help our clients manage effectively, efficiently and responsively. We are one of the largest providers of audit and accounting services to the state/local government market, bringing unique insight on the operations and business of the public sector to the City. We understand this engagement includes: GASB 87 and 96 / Data collection, contract and agreement review, accounting and reporting updates with necessary documentation and support. / Assistance with discount rate determination utilizing DebtBook template / Data input, review, and/or updates for identified lease and SBITA contracts in DebtBook and preparation of journal entries and footnote disclosures GASB 101 / Assessment of the City's current practices and liabilities for compensated absences. / Methodology determination, data collection, and historical trend analysis. / Calculation and preparation of year-end schedules, journal entries, and footnote disclosures for GASB 101. Ongoing and as -needed supplemental support for future GASB pronouncements and annual reviews/updates to GASB 101. With Cherry Bekaert, the City will benefit from: A comprehensive, established four -phase implementation approach that has been successfully deployed on GASBs 87 and 96 and currently being utilized on GASB 101, and team members experienced with DebtBook for reporting, journal entry posting and handling reporting queries.