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County finance staff outline GASB lease reporting, lottery transfers and year-end budget amendments
Summary
Finance staff presented three technical items at the June 2 work session: accounting changes required by GASB 87 and 96, a requested transfer of lottery funds to Rowan County on request, and multiple year-end budget amendments across county funds.
Cabarrus County finance staff briefed the Board of Commissioners on several fiscal-technical items June 2, including new accounting requirements under GASB, a lottery-fund transfer request, and routine year-end budget amendments.
Jim Howden, finance director, said Governmental Accounting Standards Board standards GASB 87 and 96 "require us to record certain leases and certain IT subscriptions as debt payments." He explained that the county budgets these costs in departmental general-fund accounts and then moves them at year end into the Community Investment Fund for reporting and debt-payment purposes; the amendment before the board authorizes journal entries to effect that reporting change.
On lottery funds, Howden explained that each school district's lottery funds are managed by the county where the district resides. Kannapolis City Schools span Rowan and Cabarrus counties; Rowan County had just submitted its request for its share in May, so the county is processing a transfer request to Rowan upon that submission.
Howden also reviewed year-end budget amendments across several funds, including the Community Development Fund (home repairs and ramps), fire district distributions (pass-through property tax payments), a small-project fund for multi-year grants and register of deeds automation, sheriff's forfeiture and grant funds, senior-services donations, the self-insured medical fund (to budget anticipated health/dental expenses), ambulance-billing revenue and expenses, and sales-tax distributions to fire districts. He stated the amendments primarily recognize revenues received late in the fiscal year and ensure departments can spend allocated funds on July 1.
Why it matters: GASB accounting changes affect how the county reports debt and liabilities; lottery and year-end amendments affect how funds flow to schools and operating departments. Commissioners asked clarifying questions about timing and the need to wait for external requests (Rowan County) before processing transfers.
Howden offered to go into further detail on each fund, and commissioners thanked staff for the explanatory briefing.
