CHINA GROVE -- A clean audit report of China Grove's fiscal year was presented before the town council on Tuesday during its regularly-scheduled monthly meeting.
Lee Grissom of S. Preston Douglas & Associates shared his firm's findings with the council.
"First off, the good news, we issued an unmodified opinion," Grissom said. "That is also referred to as a clean opinion ... Basically what that is saying is that you can rely on these financial statements."
Grissom commended China Grove officials for the submitted filings.
"The Local Government Commission really wants those reports in, so it is a high priority," Grissom said. "I really give a lot of praise to your business office to get that out and all the information so we can draft this report and issue our opinion before the deadline."
Grissom indicated that they found no issues with internal controls on the audit.
"We had very few adjustments needed on the financial information provided during the course of the audit so the books were in good shape," he said. "There were no new accounting policy changes that were material this year and we did not consult with other auditors."
Grissom explained their process when submitting an audit each year:
"It's sort of a self reporting spreadsheet where the local government commission looks at a lot of financial metrics and compares them to other municipalities," he said. "I am happy to report there were no financial performance indicators of concern. That is a very big deal. I do a lot of governmental audits and I would say at least half of municipalities have some type of financial performance indicator of concern that the town has to respond to."
China Grove's total net position in June 30 was $6.8 million, which represents an increase of $427,000 from the previous year. However, the General Fund did have a "slight" decrease of $97,600 this year.
"The fund balance, there were no issues with the budget," Grissom said. "There were no overages or internal control findings that we came across."
Grissom presented past fiscal information including analysis for governmental funds:
"It's kind of your equity for governmental funds in the last eight fiscal years," Grissom said. "We're at about $4.9 million in fund balance. That is the second highest fund balance of the last eight years for China Grove."
An important indicator discussed was months in reserve general fund:
"This represents emergency fund for your general fund," Grissom noted. "This is unassigned fund balance divided by general expenditures... In 2024, you are at 61.54 percent or about seven months reserves... It’s twice what local government commission requires as minimum threshold (34%)."
Property tax collection was highlighted as significantly improved:
"You had an 11 percent increase in property tax collections or $224,000," Grissom stated."The tax collection percentage was 98.94 percent comparable previous year's rate (98 .54%)."