Nye County auditors issue clean opinion for 2023–24; commission approves corrective action plan

Dan MacArthur, the lead auditor for Daniel MacArthur LTD, told the Nye County Board of Commissioners on Feb. 13 that the firm issued a clean opinion on the county’s fiscal year ended June 30, 2024, financial statements.

"In our opinion, the financial statements referred to above present fairly and in all material respects the respective financial position of the governmental activities, the business-type activities, each major fund, and the aggregate remaining fund information of the county as of 06/30/2024," MacArthur said during his presentation.

The audit presentation and ensuing discussion focused on several compliance and internal-control items MacArthur identified as requiring corrective action. The auditor told the board the report includes two areas of statutory noncompliance tied to budgetary control: several general-fund functions exceeded their appropriations (driven in part by retroactive personnel settlements posted to the prior year), and smaller over-expenditures occurred in specific funds. MacArthur also reported a repeated internal-control finding regarding timely month-end close and a statutory requirement that the county perform a physical capital-asset inventory at least every two years.

Comptroller Bay told the board the county has been working with auditors and staff for about a year to address those issues and has taken steps to fill vacant positions in the comptroller’s office. Bay said the comptroller’s office has been cleaning up the fixed-asset subledger and is preparing to conduct the required physical inventory. "We will be coming back in front of the board to ask to raise that threshold to at least 5,000 for per item cost of tangible items," Bay said when discussing proposed changes to the county's capitalization thresholds and how the county will treat lower-cost items such as laptops and cell phones.

The audit highlighted several monetary figures the board discussed: the general fund cash balance was presented at $9,652,000 as of June 30, 2024 (compared with $2,546,000 the prior year); the audit lists an estimated net OPEB obligation of $58,000,000 and a net pension-related estimate of about $79,566,000; certain fund overages cited included a $365,000 variance in general government and $95,000 in public works attributed mainly to a bargaining-unit settlement, an Agricultural Extension Fund over-expenditure of $4,332, a Print Museum Fund over-expenditure of $1,321, a $82 variance in the state and county room tax fund, and a Pahrump Golf Course enterprise fund shortfall identified as $135,188.

Former Commissioner Frank Carboni spoke during public comment and thanked staff and auditors for their work, saying, "I think the report looks good." Commissioners and staff described weekly meetings held over the past year to prepare the audit and corrective action work.

After discussion, the board approved two motions by unanimous vote. The board voted 5–0 to accept the audited financial statements for fiscal year 2023–24 and 5–0 to approve the corrective action letter to the Nevada Department of Taxation. Comptroller Bay said the corrective action plan will detail steps to address the findings and will be on a future agenda for more in-depth review.

The presentation and votes close a year-long effort by county finance staff to clean and reconcile records, fill vacancies and prepare the corrective action letter the department of taxation requires. Commissioners said they expect to return to follow up on the capital-asset inventory work and options to address the Pahrump Golf Course enterprise fund deficit in upcoming budget discussions.