County auditor reports unmodified FY24 opinion; general fund at about $27 million

Aaron Hawkins, the auditor invited to present the county's FY2024 financial statements, told the Board the independent auditor's opinion is unmodified, meaning "based on the testing that we did, the financial statements that follow this can be relied upon." He said this is the second year the county is using a new accounting system and described the audit process as having "really, really, nothing but good things to say."

Hawkins walked supervisors through the Management's Discussion and Analysis and the fund statements, saying the general fund balance was about $27,000,000 at year-end, of which nearly $26,000,000 was unassigned and available for county discretion. He also noted an interpretive issue related to capital-asset groupings that required staff attention but did not constitute a new accounting standard change.

On internal controls and federal compliance testing, Hawkins said auditors found no reportable findings on state or federal compliance pages. "If we had any findings that we had to report, based on that, we would talk about those here. But, we do not have any findings to talk about," he said. Supervisors thanked Hawkins and county finance staff; multiple board members singled out 'Anne' for taking lead on fiscal matters and were directed to contact her for follow-up questions.

The presentation included references to ESSER and ARPA funds and counsel that some COVID-related funding lines are winding down. Hawkins encouraged any board members who had additional questions to contact Anne for details; the auditor did not recommend any formal corrective actions to the Board at this time.