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County auditor reports clean 2024 audit; fund balance above policy target
Summary
External auditors presented an unmodified opinion on Jefferson County’s 2024 financial statements and single audit, highlighted a $5.4 million fund-balance generation for the year and recommended planning to spend down excess unrestricted fund balance to meet policy targets.
The Legislature heard an annual audit presentation from Charles Trottier of Dresher Malecki, the county’s external audit partner, who reported an unmodified opinion on the 2024 financial statements and no material weaknesses in internal controls.
Trottier told legislators the county’s financial statements for the year ended Dec. 31, 2024, were “free of material misstatement” and that the county’s single-audit testing of major federal programs (including Community Development Block Grant, ARPA, Medicaid and social-service grants) disclosed no questioned costs.
The presentation included multi-year trends. Total 2024 revenues were reported at about $267.2 million, an increase of roughly $3.2 million from the prior year; total expenditures were about $261.8 million. Trottier noted the county generated roughly $5.4 million of fund balance in 2024, down from a $16 million increase the previous year. He said sales tax and state and federal aid had grown across recent years and that the gap between revenues and expenditures had narrowed in 2024.
Trottier highlighted a fund-balance policy target equivalent to roughly two months of spending (16.67%) and reported an unrestricted fund-balance ratio of about 23.1% at year-end — above the policy target. He recommended the county formalize plans to use onetime resources for one-time expenditures to move toward the policy target over time, noting that being above the target is less risky than falling below it but still merits planning.
Other audit observations included rising social-services costs tied to increased state and federal program activity, a 2024 increase in public-safety spending driven by vehicle purchases and Medicaid fees, and an approximately $2 million rise in employee-benefit costs driven in part by retirement-contribution timing. Trottier also repeated a longstanding best-practice recommendation: consider moving payroll processing out of the IT department to reduce segregation-of-duties risk, though he said testing had not identified fraudulent activity.
Trottier also reported clean audits on other compliance engagements, including Department of Transportation (CHIPS) testing and a passenger-facility-charge report for the county airport.
No formal action was taken in response to the audit presentation during the meeting; legislators received the report and had an opportunity to ask questions.
