Finance committee accepts city financial audit, single-audit filed

The Homewood City Finance Committee voted 3-0 on June 30 to accept the city's 2024 financial statement audit and acknowledged that the related single-audit was filed with the Federal Audit Clearinghouse.

Jenny, a senior manager with the audit firm BMSS, presented the financial statement packet and the single-audit packet, saying the firm issued an unmodified opinion on the city's financial statements and had filed the single audit on Friday with the Federal Audit Clearinghouse. "We did have an unmodified opinion on the financial statements," Jenny said, explaining that that opinion means the auditors did not find material items requiring changes.

The audit presentation summarized government-wide and fund-level statements. Jenny said total governmental fund assets and liabilities are shown beginning on the fund statements and that the total governmental fund balance was listed in the packet as $82,100,000, with $33,400,000 unassigned. She said the net change in fund balance reported for the year was an improvement of $4,900,000 and that the general fund experienced an increase of about $20,000,000, in part because of transfers back from the debt service fund.

Committee members asked no substantive follow-up questions on the numbers and thanked the audit team for their work. The committee then moved and seconded a motion to accept the audit report; the committee recorded unanimous approval by voice vote (3-0). The committee did not request additional funding for the audit; the single-audit filing was presented as complete.

The audit packet also included required supplementary information on the pension and OPEB plans and notes to the financial statements; the auditor said there were no changes in significant accounting policies this year.

The accepted audit and the single-audit filing will be part of the public financial record for the city and were presented to the committee as complete.