In August the in-house finance director cost $130,000. By September, with no one hired, it cost $167,100.

When Kenyon's finance director left in July 2025, the city contracted the work to Abdo, an accounting firm in Mankato, rather than hire a replacement. City Administrator Scott Lehner told the Kenyon Leader that month that the firm "could come in at around $200,000, compared to around $130,000 for the cost of having a full time finance director," and that he recommended the firm anyway to reset the city's finance practices. On July 14, 2026, asked by a council member whether hiring in-house would cost less, he said the comparison was "pretty much a wash" 1:25:31 and promised a written comparison. It came on September 8.

The page

The agenda item summary, submitted by Holli Gudknecht for administration, lists the firm's proposed services: Financial Solutions $109,000, HR Services $30,000, Payroll Services $25,800, a total of $164,800 a year. Against that it sets "the estimated cost of hiring a full-time Finance Director at an hourly rate of $40.45, including full benefits and assuming no overtime," at "approximately $167,100 annually." The components are wages "approximately $90,000," taxes "approximately $14,000," and insurance for health, dental and life "assuming family coverage: approximately $63,000."

The August 2025 figure was not wages alone. On the recording of the August 12, 2025 meeting the administrator says, at 44:18, "130 to $135,000 a year is what that position is costing the city, all benefits and everything." The September 2026 page reaches $167,100 for the same position, also with benefits, thirteen months later and with no one in the chair.

The arithmetic

The wage line does not follow from the rate on the same page. Forty dollars and forty-five cents an hour for 2,080 hours is $84,136, not $90,000. The insurance line assumes family coverage at $63,000 for one employee, a figure the report does not source; the 2027 budget draft the council saw in August budgeted a 5 percent increase in health insurance across all staff and carried an open question about whether the vacant police position would need family or single coverage 40:56. Take the posted wage and the report's own tax figure and the in-house cost before insurance is $98,136. Family coverage at $63,000 is what turns a $70,000 gap in favor of hiring into a $2,300 gap in favor of the firm.

The total cost could come in at around $200,000, compared to around $130,000 for the cost of having a full time finance director.Scott Lehner, as reported by the Kenyon Leader, August 2025.

Between the Leader interview and the staff report, thirteen months passed and no finance director was hired, so nothing about the job changed. The number for it rose $37,100. The number for the firm fell from "around $200,000" to $164,800, which is close to what it actually billed: $66,086 in 2025 and $94,372 from January through August 2026, a run rate near $141,600.

As we also discussed, the estimated cost of hiring a full-time Finance Director at an hourly rate of $40.45, including full benefits and assuming no overtime, would be approximately $167,100 annually.Staff report, Sept. 8, 2026 packet, p. 239, source

The rest of the page

Below the figures the report lists "several advantages to utilizing our team-based service model": access to a team of experts, audit support, continuous coverage, proactive compliance, and "Enhanced Segregation of Duties." The pronoun is the vendor's. The same packet carries the firm's three-year proposal, which repeats the point in its own voice: "The City's small staff size presents inherent challenges in segregation of duties. Abdo's contracted services add an essential layer of financial control." The FY2025 audit, presented the same night, lists as its first material weakness that accounting duties are not adequately segregated, with five of ten sampled journal entries lacking support and a material adjustment the city's closing had not caught.

The council had asked in July for a comparison. What it received was the vendor's price beside an in-house estimate built to land $2,300 above it, on a page that closes with the vendor's sales language. A finance director's job is to check numbers like these before they reach the council. The city has not had one since July 2025, and the audit committee that would otherwise have read the page was eliminated on January 14, 2025 30:44. The number that mattered on September 8 was the one the same office had given the newspaper a year earlier, and it was not on the page.

Sources

1. Council packet, September 8, 2026, "Abdo vs. Internal Finance Director," pp. 238 to 240; Abdo three-year proposal, "small staff size".
2. Kenyon Leader, "Kenyon approves new contract with Abdo for finance, HR services," August 2025.
3. City of Kenyon recording, July 14, 2026, at 1:25:31; August 6, 2026, at 40:56.
4. Abdo payments from the check registers, contracts page; material weaknesses, the open letter.

More from the record

Housing · Aug. 6, 2026

KMU offered to lend for housing lots. Twice. The EDA president said there was no money. Two years gone, eight lots left.

City Hall · Sept. 8, 2026

The breakdown Lehner promised in July never showed up. The first audit with Abdo on the books found three material weaknesses.

City Hall · Aug. 6, 2026

"We don't know what you're doing." Said by the council member who sits on the EDA.

All 27, in order · The open letter · Every packet and recording