2020 AUDIT PLUS FIRST QUARTER
CLEAN AUDIT – City Finance Director gets high marks
In spite of the pandemic and his not being able to come to Salmon, all is well with the city audit according to Farrell Steiner of Searle, Hart & Associates PLLC.
Members of the Salmon City Council had already received the report as of the January 20 council meeting and had it to study as Steiner went through the highlights. He said doing the audit remotely was an adventure and City Finance Director Amy Fealko made it work. He said it went smoothly and he thanked Fealko for all of her help.
In the audit’s management report, there were no comments because every thing in the audit was clean based on the testing and tracking the company did on the financials. He called the audit comments an ‘unmodified opinion,’ or in other words the financials found in the audit can be relied upon. There were graphs showing the total cash which began slightly lower in 2019 due to capital outlay, then climbed back up in 2020.
He said things were consistent in the General Fund. Steiner touched on various categories such as Streets and Alleys’ where the cash balance increased. He noted the city had reduced the budget anticipating pandemic effects and as a result the cash balance is actually higher than it was last year. He saw no negative trends in the audit report.
He recommended council members review the Management Discussion and Analysis portion of the report for a synopsis of the overall audit details. It contains a summary of the previous fiscal year based on the numbers in this audit. There is also a list of the items purchased by the city last year which is reflected in the capital improvement outlay total. Total cash in Governmental Fund investments went from $1,340,000 to $1,640,000, an increase of around $300,000.
Steiner went through the accounts receivable and expenditures past, present and future…long term debt figures and the amortization schedule. As to paying off any debts early he said interest rates are so low there is no advantage. With the water projects coming up Fealko’s advice was to keep as much money in the Capital accounts as possible.
The council unanimously approved Steiner’s audit report.
Later in the meeting Fealko gave a financial overview of current finances. Fealko said the cash total of all the different funds totals $5.5 million of which 1.7 percent is reserved and allocated between larger funds. She said the Sewer holds the largest amount of reserved funding at $1.9 million. The Water Fund is second with reserved funds of $917,000. A quarter of the fiscal year is complete. Revenues collected are at 10.1 percent and expenditures are at 24.3 percent of the budgeted amount which she said is right in line with historical percentages for this time of the budget year.
Fealko said there are some COVID-19 related expenditures which have been reimbursed and will show in the January report. The largest revenue to date is the first payment of taxes. There will be another significant payment in January.
Fealko applied for and the city received $149,000 from the state tax relief program which was given to property tax payers in January and has been reimbursed. Those figures will also show as revenue in January’s monthly financial report. She said that overall, all city department expenditures and revenues are on target. She said the budget will be opened to make some adjustments to it and there will be further discussions on things at that time such as the Local Option Tax collections and the sidewalk repair budget.
The evening’s Audit report as well as the quarterly financial report will be placed on the city’s web site which is found on-line at, www. cityofsalmon.com