Council accepts 2024 audit showing unmodified opinion and healthy fund balances

The City Council voted 5-0 to accept the 2024 annual audit after a presentation from Rushton Group. "For 12/31/24 year ended, we've issued an unmodified opinion, which is the best opinion the city can have," Will Merritt, an audit manager with Rushton, told the council. Merritt highlighted the city's government-wide net position and said unrestricted net position stood at $33,200,624 and total net position at about $354.9 million, with net income of $18.62 million for 2024. He said general-fund revenues rose roughly $1.4 million (7.23%), with sales taxes accounting for about $578,000 of the increase and intergovernmental revenues up by about $507,000 (noting a portion came from the Police Foundation). On the expenditure side, Merritt said general-fund spending decreased about $1.1 million (7.1%), with public safety expenditures up about $800,000 and streets spending down roughly $2.5 million due to completion of a project. He said unrestricted fund balance remained essentially flat and would cover roughly eight months of general-fund expenditures under his calculation. Merritt also reported that the single-audit review of federal programs produced no findings and that there were no internal-control or compliance matters reported. After questions from council members and a request to receive the presentation charts by email, the council moved to accept the audit. The motion carried 5-0.