City auditor issues clean opinion on FY2024 financials but flags ARPA reporting deficiency and two control findings

Price Page & Company presented the City of Tulare's FY2024 annual comprehensive financial report and single audit. Audit manager Anthony Gonzales reported an unmodified (clean) opinion on the city's financial statements and described areas the audit emphasized, including cash and investments, revenues, capital assets and developer impact fee collections.

Gonzales said the auditors identified two government-audit-standards findings: an incomplete bank reconciliation and an outdated overhead cost-allocation methodology. He contrasted this year with the prior-year material weakness and said the 2024 findings were smaller in scope.

On federal awards, Gonzales said the single audit covered ARPA funds and identified one compliance deficiency related to reporting: "the expenditure activity recorded on the books... did not align with the reports that were submitted to the federal government," he said, noting that quarterly reports submitted earlier lacked details later required. The audit modified its compliance opinion only on reporting; allowable uses of ARPA funds were not in question.

City staff and the auditor said the differences in reporting occurred in a period of staff transitions and that the city has since improved processes and is reconciling the general ledger to what is reported in federal portals. Assistant finance staff said consultants were not entering or reviewing the earlier quarterly portal reports but are now involved in the reporting process.

Council accepted the auditor's presentation and later moved to accept the comprehensive financial report by vote.