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County accepts FY25 audit citing clean opinion, two findings on grants and budget overages
Summary
The county's external auditors issued a clean (unmodified) opinion on Brewster County's FY25 financial statements but reported two findings—grants accounting maintained in external spreadsheets and two budget line overages. The court accepted the audit and auditors recommended moving grant accounting into the county ENCODE system.
Preston Singleton, a partner at Singleton Clark CPAs, presented Brewster County's fiscal year 2025 audit and told the court the firm was issuing an unmodified opinion on the financial statements. "We are saying to the public that we believe these financial statements are, materially correct and are stated in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles," Singleton said.
Singleton walked the court through the general fund schedule, reporting just over $9.8 million in revenues, nearly $8.8 million in expenditures and an ending general fund balance of about $8,382,000 as of Sept. 30, 2025 — roughly a year's worth of expenditures. He also summarized the audit's two findings: a significant deficiency in grants accounting where staff maintained grant records in external Excel spreadsheets rather than the county's financial system (Tyler Technologies ENCODE), and budgetary noncompliance with overspends in the culture and recreation and capital outlay line items.
"We recommend the county stop the practice of using external Excel spreadsheets for the grants accounting," Singleton said, recommending that grant transactions be recorded in ENCODE and grant claims be filed from system reports so the accounting system is the single source of truth.
Following the presentation the court moved to accept the audit. Judge Hennington called for a motion and second; the motion passed on a voice vote. The court did not direct further immediate action beyond the auditor's recommendations and staff's stated plan to reconcile grant accounting to the general ledger.
The next steps identified in the meeting included continued work to reconcile grants in the ENCODE system, anticipated follow‑up by county finance staff, and the county's plan to continue staying current on audits going forward.
