Auditor gives Columbus County clean opinion but flags three material weaknesses and warns fund balance has fallen to about 19%

The county's external auditor presented the fiscal year 2024 audit to the Columbus County Board of Commissioners and said the financial statements received an unmodified (clean) opinion, while also reporting three material weaknesses and multiple corrective actions that the county must address.

Liam Bagasala, audit director at Malden and Jenkins, told commissioners the audit covers July 1, 2023, through June 30, 2024, and that the firm issued a clean opinion on the basic financial statements while also identifying three material weaknesses that require management attention.

Bagasala said one material weakness related to capital-asset reporting and required adjustments to construction-in-progress, including two school projects identified in the audit. He described a second material weakness as a prior-period restatement tied to how the county records opioid settlement revenue after guidance from the Government Finance Officers Association and the North Carolina Local Government…