| Kay Kimball, independent auditor gives Emery County a clean audit. |
Emery County received a clean audit report at the July 17 commission meeting. Kay Kimble, independent auditor gave a clean opinion on the financial statements for the county for fiscal year 2006 ending Dec. 31, 2006.
In the auditor’s report two of the components weren’t audited by Kimble, the Castle Valley Special Service District and the North Emery Water Users Special Service District were audited by other organizations.
The recreation district, fire district and road district were all part of the audit as well as the primary government, (the county). There was one management letter item. This was for the excess fund balance in the amount of $320,305. This needed to be taken care of and on May 15, the county budget was amended to take care of the fund balance. This was a state compliance requirement recently implemented by the state.
The auditor goes through the financial statements to find out if the county is in compliance. “We found everything in order and the county is in good financial condition. We are also required to look at fraud. We must conduct a detailed fraud investigation. We interviewed several employees and we didn’t find anything. No employee gave any indication of suspicions of wrong doing. We felt good about that. Fraud is a real concern,” said Kimball.
Kimball explained they must go through an analysis of the major and non major funds coming into the county. They audit all funds, but pay special attention to the major funds. Part of the audit is to confirm all of the cash and send confirmations of all deposits. There were no problems detected in any of the funds. The county has $26 million in capital assets.
Review is also made of debt and net assets. Assets must be kept track of and depreciated as needed. The long term debt of the county is also evaluated. The statements are reconciled.
The county has two bond issues right now. The county has good financial stability. The audit also looks at the economic dependency of the county for the tax base. Rocky Mountain Power accounts for 60 percent of the tax revenue and 87 percent of the revenue is from state assessed properties. Kimball commented that this 87 percent is a very high number and such dependency is backed up by the county’s $8 million in rainy day funds if needed; if there is a change in state assessed tax stability.
“You have very capable people doing the books and keeping track of the county’s money,” said Kimble.
The commission approved the fiscal year 2006 audit, completed by independent auditor, Kay Kimball.