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Legislature accepts clean audit; county staff warns fund balance gives limited wiggle room for 2025 budget
Summary
External auditors gave Tompkins County an unmodified (clean) opinion for 2023 financials. County Administrator Lisa Holmes reported a $60.9M unassigned fund balance at year-end and warned reserves and the new 25% fund-balance policy leave little unassigned money for the 2025 budget; she proposed using the debt-service reserve to free $3M for one-time needs.
External auditors reported an unmodified (clean) opinion for Tompkins County's 2023 audited financial statements and compliance/internal-control reports. The auditors said there were no management-letter findings and highlighted a clean opinion on the federal- and NYSDOT-funded activity.
"We're issuing technically it's called an unmodified opinion... It's a clean opinion," the auditor told the legislature.
Following the audit presentation, County Administrator Lisa Holmes summarized fund-balance implications for the 2025 budget. She said the county's unassigned fund balance at the end of 2023 was $60.9 million and that the county's updated policy uses 25% of prior-year expenditures as the minimum target (about $48.7 million for 2023). Holmes said the county moved roughly $12.6 million into designated reserves earlier in 2024, leaving very little unassigned for new one-time or multi-year requests.
"We are still in a very strong fiscal position with 48,300,000 in unassigned fund balance," Holmes said, adding that ARPA funds are no longer available to supplant the 2025 budget. She proposed identifying capital projects that could be funded from a debt-service reserve to free approximately $3 million within the tax-levy target for one-time requests.
The legislature voted to accept the audited financial report on a roll-call; the audit adoption passed unanimously. Members debated reserve policy, timing of federal/state reimbursements and whether to use reserves or adjust the 25% policy in 2025; several suggested a follow-up session with finance staff for detailed questions.
