City controller: AFR submitted, audit exit conference set; 2022 debt-limit table error corrected
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Summary
City controller Jeff McKim told the Finance Committee the city submitted its Annual Financial Report on Feb. 27 and that auditors scheduled an ACFR exit conference for April 2; he acknowledged a 2022 debt-limit table error that was corrected in 2023 and addressed public concerns about PDF accessibility and audit trails.
Jeff McKim, the city controller, told the Bloomington City Council Finance Committee that the city submitted its Annual Financial Report (AFR) to the state Gateway portal on Feb. 27 and that the auditors have scheduled an exit conference for Thursday, April 2 as part of the Annual Comprehensive Financial Report (ACFR) audit process.
"The AFR is an unaudited financial filing that all local units of government are required to make each year by March 1 for the preceding year," McKim said, adding that the AFR is a data output of the state's Gateway system and can be amended if errors are found.
McKim explained the difference between the AFR and the ACFR, saying the AFR is presented on a cash or regulatory basis while the ACFR is prepared on a modified-accrual/GAAP basis and is audited. He said the audit process provides independent assurance about the accuracy of the city's financial statements.
During public comment and committee questioning, residents and participants raised two recurring concerns: apparent misstatements in certain tables of earlier reports and the accessibility of PDF exports from the Gateway site. Kevin Keogh and Eric Hodes asked the committee to verify figures in the long-range report and table 12, and requested that PDFs meet WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility standards.
McKim acknowledged an error in the 2022 ACFR's debt-limit calculation table. "The table that was used to calculate the constitutional debt limit omitted dividing the assessed value by 3," he said, and added that the error was corrected in the 2023 report. He emphasized that the city did not exceed the constitutional debt limit at any point.
On accessibility, McKim said the Gateway export does not include a narrative field and that exported PDFs currently fail accessibility checkers; he said the administration will remediate reports and make accessible versions available once the final long-range report is received and adjusted for year-end closings.
McKim also said the AFR and ACFR sometimes contain both audited and unaudited components and that he would follow up on whether the 2022 table error was in an audited portion or an unaudited narrative. He encouraged committee members to attend the auditors' exit conference if they wish; the conference information is embargoed until the State Board of Accounts approves the audit.
The controller said the administration expects to be back on schedule for 2025 filings and has already provided significant inputs to the GAAP compiler working on fiscal 2025 materials.
The committee asked for an error/corrections log and clearer presentation of the AFR/ACFR changes; McKim suggested the Gateway system limits what the city can add and noted there is a Gateway feature-request channel the city can use to propose improvements.
The committee did not take a formal vote on the audit materials at the meeting. The exit conference and the embargoed audit report remain the next procedural steps.
