Carroll County audit: clean opinion, one material adjustment tied to school books

Robinson, Farmer & Cox delivered an unmodified—or "clean"—audit opinion for Carroll County's fiscal 2024 financial statements and reported one material set of adjustments affecting the school board's records, the county's outside auditor told the Board of Supervisors on Wednesday.

"It's an unmodified clean report," Gordon Jones, manager in charge of the audit for Robinson, Farmer & Cox, said as he opened his presentation to the board. He said the county's independent auditor also issued a separate government-auditing-standards report and a uniform guidance report for federal funds; both showed no material compliance findings for the county side of the records.

Jones told the board the only finding of note involved adjustments the auditors made to the school board's books after receiving the submissions. "These adjustments aren't indicative of fraud or anything like that," Jones said, describing the corrections as changes needed to align the school records with generally accepted accounting principles.

Jones summarized the county's financial position as strong. He reported total fund balance for the county (general fund plus CIP, excluding separate school fund presentation) at about $42.5 million, with unassigned fund balance roughly $23.2 million. Net governmental expenditures were reported near $105 million; Jones noted the unassigned fund balance equated to about 22 percent of those expenditures, which he described as within a typical target range for local governments.

On cash and liquidity, Jones said the county ended the year with more than $30 million in general fund cash and a general fund balance of roughly $34.3 million. He also described the county's current ratio and debt-to-equity as healthy and said county interest-bearing general obligation debt stood near $3.75 million.

Jones described total county long-term obligations of roughly $20.4 million and reported the school system's total long-term obligations around $34 million; those school figures include actuarial estimates such as net OPEB and pension liabilities as required by GASB statements. He also warned of upcoming new GASB pronouncements affecting compensated-absence calculations and other reporting changes for future fiscal years.

Board members asked a few clarifying questions about multi-year growth rates and the cause of the school adjustments; Jones and county staff said the use of an outside consultant for the school accounting this year contributed to the need for adjustments. Jones invited supervisors to contact him with follow-up questions.

The audit presentation concluded with the board's acceptance of the reports and no formal objections recorded.