Drescher & Malecki Partner Carl Widmer presents 2021 Audit results to Jamestown City Council (August 8, 2022)
The City of Jamestown’s financial audit for 2021 was positive.
Drescher & Malecki Partner Carl Widmer presented the results of the audit to Jamestown City Council Monday night. He said the city’s revenues for 2021 were $37.4 million with expenditures at $33.2 million.
Widmer said when it comes to the city’s total fund balance, the unassigned balance was $6 million with the assigned balance of $1 million. He said the unassigned balance currently represents 17% of the year’s spending. The Government Finance Officer’s Association (GFOA) recommends that a municipality’s general fund should have no less than two months of spending in their unassigned balance, which equates to 16.7%, “So this 17%, the city has reached that minimum. Although, it’s no requirement but the GFOA is a respected body of best practices and basically they say that’s a level that you’d be able to withstand whatever potential challenges you may have on the horizon.”
Widmer said auditors will be working with city management over the next year to create a Fund Balance Policy. He said overall it was a positive financial result for the last year, with the almost $2 million of unexpected sales tax receipts helping boost the total fund balance.
Widmer added there were no compliance findings, “But on the tail of the turnover of the Comptroller position, we did include in our report our findings about certain responsibilities and tasks being performed by one individual without another person involved in the process. And as auditors, that’s something that we’ll bring to your attention as an area where anytime where you have too many responsibilities being performed by one individual it increases the risk.”
Widmer said the City has developed a response to that with the planned hiring of a Deputy Comptroller.
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