City receives highest opinion from financial auditor
The Annual Audit Report gave the city an unmodified opinion, the highest opinion possible from an independent accounting firm.
Tuesday’s San Marcos City Council meeting featured several audit and finance presentations: City of San Marcos’ Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) for Fiscal Year (FY) 19, the Quarterly Investment and Financial Reports and Deloitte and Touche, LLP’s quarterly audit on Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR).
The CAFR, conducted by ABIP, is a report on the city’s financial statements for FY 19. The highest opinion means that all financial statements are in line with the accounting standards of the United States.
The general fund for FY 19 ended with a $16.6 million unassigned fund balance, which means that the city met the standard of having 25% or three months worth of average operating expenses. The fund had an increase of $970,000 which was related to property tax and sales tax increase.
The Quarterly Investment and Financial Report showed the city was favorable in all funds, except stormwater management which was unfavorable by $200,000. This is because the city had budgeted for a rate increase but was not able to implement it for the Oct. 1 deadline for the fiscal year. The city plans to inform the public about the increased rate and implement for FY 2021.
The General Fund is running favorable by $2 million due to personnel savings.
City of San Marcos has $276.4 million invested in the first quarter of 2020 and the average yield to maturity has increased between 2018 and 2019.
Director of Finance Heather Hurlbert received a thank you from City Manager Bert Lumbreras after she delivered her final quarterly report. Hurlbert is leaving the city to pursue other opportunities in Corpus Christi after serving the City of San Marcos for 11 years.
Deloitte and Touche, LLPs’ quarterly CDBG-DR audit from FY 19’s quarter 3 revealed seven areas at risk of not complying with federal rules and regulations.
After evaluating, the auditor suggests that they will look at the environmental review process in quarter 1, review the housing program and staff turnover in quarter 2, a spend analysis in quarter 3 and an infrastructure project review in quarter 4.
In other business, Maxfield Baker was nominated to represent the city council on the Complete Count Committee.
