Haywood County audit issues clean opinion; FEMA capital projects fund overspent $3.6 million due to invoice timing

Independent auditors told the Haywood County Board of Commissioners on March 2 that the county's FY2025 financial statements are fairly stated and its federal and state grant expenditures complied with requirements, while flagging a single timing-related budget overage.

"We issued an unmodified opinion on the county's financial statements," said Travis Keever, principal at Gould Killian CPA Group, summarizing the audit at the county's regular meeting. Keever said the firm also issued an unmodified opinion on compliance for audited federal and state programs and found no material weaknesses in internal control.

Keever told commissioners the county received roughly $52.9 million in federal and state grant expenditures in FY2025, and the audit tested 10 programs. He said overall county totals included about $154 million in total assets, $147 million in total revenues and $164 million in total expenditures for the year.

The auditors did report one instance of reportable noncompliance: "In the FEMA capital projects fund, it was overspent in FY25 by $3,600,000," Keever said, attributing the anomaly to delayed invoices from the primary debris cleanup contractor and uncertainty about state versus county billing at fiscal year-end. "We don't view this as any kind of a systemic issue with the county's budgetary process," he added.

County Manager Brian Moore explained the overspend as a timing issue tied to a short operational window in which contractors removed a large volume of debris. "That 12 days' from May 15 to May 27' they picked up about $4.2 million worth of debris," Moore said, and the bills arrived after the fiscal year closed; the manager said the budget was subsequently amended early in the new fiscal year.

Keever also summarized county fund balances and benchmarks. He said available fund balance remains well above the board's target of 25 percent of general fund expenditures; the audit showed available-fund-balance percentages of about 54 percent in the prior year and 47 percent in FY2025. Keever said those metrics place Haywood County above many peer counties and pose no immediate fiscal concern.

Commissioners and residents praised county finance staff for their recordkeeping and compliance work during public discussion following the presentation.

The board did not take formal action at the meeting on the audit report beyond receiving the presentation and discussing next steps to monitor grant accounting and invoices.