Colfax County auditors begin work as commissioners confront widespread budget overruns

Colfax County commissioners heard a detailed briefing from the county's newly engaged accounting team on Jan. 14 and were told it may take weeks to finalize the county's fourth-quarter reports and begin work toward the late fiscal-year 2024 audit.

The county manager, Michael Muniz, told commissioners that “pretty much every budget within Colfax County is over at this time,” and that solid waste, the clerk's office and the jail were among departments that had exceeded their budgets. Audrey, a representative of the new accounting team, said the firm is “fully onboarded” and has begun pulling reports and working through backlog items.

The auditors told the commission they had just received full access to county systems and were already scheduling on-site work to verify capital assets — a task they said is needed to complete the FY24 audit. “It all depends … on the accuracy of the information in Triadic,” Audrey said when asked about a timeline; she told commissioners she expected several weeks of review and a target of issuing the June 30, 2024 fourth-quarter report “sometime in February.”

Why it matters: County leaders said accurate actuals are required before the county can release some restricted funds, including sheriff's office monies that are contingent on reconciled reports. Commissioners repeatedly pressed for a clear schedule and weekly status updates from the accounting team.

Commission discussion focused on several immediate problems: the solid waste disposal line was substantially over budget because of catch-up payments for gross receipts tax (GRT) and higher-than-expected disposal fees, and the jail had multiple overages across line items. At one point a commissioner noted solid waste had only “33% left in their budget.” Solid waste staff explained the disposal contract and GRT catch-up were the primary drivers of the overrun.

The new accountants reported initial work on federal grant reconciliations, the TIGER grant, and a federal data collection form required for single-audit review. They also said they would perform site visits to inventory capital assets and reconcile those lists with auditors’ records — work the accountants described as key to unblocking the FY24 audit.

Commissioners voted that day on routine expenditures and other agenda items while directing staff to provide additional documentation to the auditors. The commission asked for weekly status updates from the accounting team and the county manager.

The meeting left several open items: a definitive date for the FY24 audit completion, the full reconciled fourth-quarter report, and department-level action plans to bring line items back within budget constraints. The auditors said they will return to the commission with further updates and expect to continue on-site work in the coming weeks.