Finance manager: Lago Vista still catching up on reconciliations; auditors onsite this week

Nicole Navarro, Lago Vista’s finance manager, told the council the city discovered it was behind in its financial close work around January and has been working to reconcile bank accounts and perform approximately 800 journal entries needed to close the prior fiscal year. Navarro told the council she is currently a department of one after prior staffing reductions and that auditors were on site this week to complete the audit work that normally would have taken place earlier in the year.

Navarro said October reconciliations were complete for the city’s four operating accounts, and progress has been made on November and December; some reconciling items in two accounts remain to be corrected and one discrepancy appears to be due to software error that must be resolved with the vendor. She provided council members with copies of reconciliations and said she expects to have additional hires soon, including a finance assistant and possibly a finance director who is in final negotiation.

Council members acknowledged the staffing challenges, thanked Navarro for her work and asked staff to provide a posted, publicly available end-of-year report as soon as practical. Navarro said the auditors were available this week and she expects forward progress in the next few weeks.