Black Mountain council gets clean audit; approves community garden plan, parks donation and reinstates development fees

The Black Mountain Town Council on Feb. 10 received a clean audit opinion for the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2024, and took a series of recovery- and operations-related votes including adoption of a community garden site plan, acceptance of donated park fencing and bleachers, and reinstatement of most development fees suspended after Hurricane Helene.

Auditor Travis Keever of Gould Killian told the council the firm issued an unmodified (clean) opinion and found no material weaknesses in the town's internal control over financial reporting. He said two Local Government Commission benchmarks were triggered: expenditures in excess of appropriations in the golf fund (a one-time lease-related event) and a roughly $66,000 deficit fund balance in the grant fund driven by timing of receipts, both of which auditors and staff said should resolve in FY25.

Finance Director Tammy presented current-year cash and budget figures and storm-recovery updates. The town's total budget stands at $25,299,190; revenues collected to date were about $6.5 million (roughly 58.6% of the current budget, excluding appropriated fund balance and transfers). Tammy told the council that planning-permit revenue is down by about $61,000 from the prior year because permit collections were temporarily suspended after the storm; the water…