Auditor: Bourbon County issued a clean regulatory-basis opinion; credit-card documentation flagged

Emily Frank, the auditor from Gilmore Phillips, presented Bourbon County's audit for the year ended Dec. 31, 2024, telling the commission the firm issued an unmodified opinion on the county's financial statements prepared on the Kansas regulatory basis of accounting.

Frank said the audit team issued an "adverse opinion on gaps to generally accepted accounting principles because the county elected to follow the Kansas regulatory basis (cash basis)." She added the regulatory-basis opinion should be read as a clean opinion for the cash/regulatory presentation the county uses.

The audit shows the county started 2024 with a combined ending unencumbered cash balance of about $4.15 million and ended the year with $3.69 million. After adding back encumbrances and accounts payable, Frank reported a reconciled cash balance of about $4.48 million at Dec. 31, 2024. She noted agency funds hold about $14.1 million of distributable ad valorem and other taxing-entity dollars that are not county spending authority.

Frank reviewed footnotes covering deposits and collateral, finance leases, the county's KPERS pension disclosures and compensated absence estimates. She said the county paid $235,000 in interest on long-term obligations during 2024 and carried a total long-term debt balance disclosed in the notes of about $8.32 million.

On internal control and management-letter matters, Frank told the commission auditors found a recurring deficiency "with some credit-card receipts missing," a problem she said had occurred in prior years. "When somebody goes to a restaurant, it should be a full receipt with all of the detail," Frank said, adding that missing supporting documentation increases the risk of having to repay grant dollars if a grantor requests evidence.

Frank also explained the audit includes supplementary schedules (budget comparisons and fund-by-fund detail) that are not part of the audited fund-summary statement but are provided to help management during the annual budget process. She encouraged commissioners and staff to review the management representation materials included in the audit packet.

Commissioners asked for copies of the audit packets and for the auditor to make available the management-letter materials online; Frank said the public packet would be submitted to the state and uploaded to the state website.

Ending: Frank offered to answer questions after the meeting and to provide copies to commissioners who missed parts of the presentation; commissioners discussed next steps for posting and using the audit figures in the 2026 budget process.