BY TRACY LEE TATE
Special to the Times
The Union County Board of Commissioners heard a presentation concerning the annual audit of the county’s finances at its regular meeting on July 15, 2024.
Ben Clark, the representative of the firm James Moore and Company in Gainesville, presented the findings of the mandatory financial “check-up” required for all governmental entities by the state.
Clark told commissioners that the audit was completed in June. Although usually referred to as the county audit, the document has many parts—one section for each of the constitutional offices (tax collector, property appraiser, sheriff’s office, supervisor of elections) and for the central county government. There is also a component covering the county’s judicial costs. Although the final figures for these various offices are reflected in the main report, each office is scrutinized separately.
Recordkeeping and oversight good
Clark’s report revealed a lot of good news for the county. The auditors gave the report an unmodified opinion – meaning that they found nothing wrong with the county’s record keeping, asset management, or financial practices. This breaks down into several specific areas, such as material weaknesses (problems in management and record keeping of county funds), no findings on internal control (proper handling and record keeping of county funds and accuracy of county financial records as well as oversite on cash handled and accountability). The report required by the state auditor general is clean and shows no areas of concern. The county’s comprehensive financial report (a document supplied to the auditors providing them with the information they need to do their job and prepared by the office of the clerk and comptroller) will be submitted by the auditors for a Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting from the Government Finance Officers Association of the United States and Canada.
Inflation dents finances
The county is in good shape financially, but it could and has been better in recent years. This has no source in managing county funds but rather in the national economy – the price of everything has increased two to four-fold. This is seen in equipment purchases, fuel and labor costs, and other areas. The situation can be seen in the funding for the various grant projects and programs the county has been funded for. For many of these projects, the amount of funding requested and granted one or more years ago as sufficient to complete a project is no longer enough to get a project done. This is just an extension of the situation the county is now facing in the construction project to build the Providence Fire Department.
Almost all government agencies faced the situation, which the auditors clarified has led to some decreases in fund balances (each grant is set up as a separate fund or line item) for accounting purposes). However, there are no deficient balances or misspending of restricted (grant) funds. It was noted in the report that the county’s reserve funds, which are kept on hand in case of an emergency, such as a tropical storm, are healthy and contain the funds necessary to keep the county in operation for several weeks.
The county’s fiscal year ends September 30, 2024, and Clerk of Court and Comptroller Kellie Rhoades and her staff are already working on the budget for next year
