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Lake Elmo Council accepts 2024 comprehensive financial report; auditor issues clean opinion
Summary
The Lake Elmo City Council accepted the city's 2024 comprehensive annual financial report after a presentation from auditor Ryan Schmidt, who delivered an unmodified (clean) opinion and noted only routine segregation-of-duties concerns.
The Lake Elmo City Council on July 1 accepted the city’s 2024 annual comprehensive financial report following a presentation by auditor Ryan Schmidt of Schlar Water and Company.
Schmidt told the council, “what we've given you this year is what's called an unmodified opinion, and that is a clean opinion,” and said there were no significant audit adjustments or compliance exceptions identified for 2024.
The unmodified opinion means the auditor determined the city’s financial statements fairly present the results of operations and financial position for the year. Schmidt said revenues in the general fund exceeded budget by about $1,007,000 and expenditures were about $378,000 below budget; overall the general fund increased by about $1.4 million rather than the slight decrease that had been budgeted. He also highlighted larger-than-budgeted investment earnings (about $364,000) and increased intergovernmental revenues (about $267,000) as drivers of the positive variance.
Schmidt noted recurring internal-control commentary regarding segregation of duties, a common observation for cities of Lake Elmo’s size, saying the city has oversight and checks in place but a few people retain broad system access. He also reported no instances of noncompliance with Minnesota statutes identified in the audit.
Council member Holtz praised staff and the auditor, saying, “this is several years in a row now where there's nothing being observed for a mistake, intentional or otherwise,” and emphasized that segregation-of-duties findings are typical for similarly sized Minnesota cities.
Council discussion included a question from Council member Volts about comparability of water revenue trends to other cities; Schmidt said the water consumption decline appeared somewhat more pronounced in Lake Elmo than in many other places, but comparisons vary based on local billing structures and usage patterns.
The motion to accept the 2024 annual comprehensive financial report was made and seconded; the council approved the report by voice vote.
The accepted audit and accompanying management comments will be part of the city’s financial record and inform budget and internal-control decisions going forward.
