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- Juab County receives clean audit opinion
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By Myrna Trauntvein
Times-News Correspondent
Juab County does an excellent job in caring for the finances of the county and received a "clean" audit opinion.
Denton Alexander and Jeremy Wilkey, both with Hawkins Cloward & Simister, represented the independent auditing firm and presented the annual audit to commissioners.
Hawkins Cloward & Simister of Orem, Utah, has changed its name to Hawkins. The firm's retirement plan division will be known as Hawkins Retirement. In conjunction with the name change, the company is launching a new branding campaign and corporate website, MyCPA.com.
"Juab does an excellent, very conservative and prudent job in terms of managing the finances of the county," said Alexander. "We appreciate that the county has some good hardworking people."
Each of the county departments involved had worked with the auditors' requests and had done all that was necessary to be accommodating, he said.
"We do appreciate the people we have," said Byron Woodland, commissioner.
Alexander turned the bulk of the time over to Wilkey, who was in charge of the field work this audit, to give the presentation of the actual audit documents.
"In our report dated June 11, 2015, we expressed that based on our procedures, we were not aware of any material modifications that should be made to the December 31, 2014 financial statements in order for them to be in conformity with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America," said Wilkey. "During the audit of the December 31, 2015 financial statements contained material errors in financial reporting that required them to be restated."
Wilkey said that the audit had to be completed by state deadlines and that the auditors would be well within the time requirements.
"The final draft form has been received by the county but the audit was first presented in its draft form because the Caselle Classic Module for Fixed Assets showed a negative depreciation and were double depreciating the fixed assets of the county," he said.
"There were some questions on the disposition report that needed to be finalized before the audit could become final," said Wilkey.
Financial highlights of the year as of the close of FY 2015 showed that the government-wide assets of the county exceeded its liabilities by $254,718,858 and of this amount, $3,751,647 (unrestricted net assets) may be used to meet the government's ongoing obligations to citizens and creditors.
"The government's total net assets increased by $1,176,719," said Wilkey.
The county's assets exceeded its liabilities at the close of FY15 by $254,718,858 and the largest segment of the net position reflects its investment in capital assets less any related outstanding debt used to acquire those assets.
The county's governmental funds reported combined ending fund balances of $11,208,124 an increase of $730,421 over the prior year's ending fund balances. The Capital Projects Fund increased its available equity from $2,681,327 to $2,733,349.
Capital Assets include land, infrastructure, buildings and equipment.
"Capital Asset resources are not available for future spending and cannot be liquidated to pay off related liabilities," he said.
Capital assets are reported in the government-wide financial statements in both the governmental activities and business-like activities. They are further divided into categories of assets not being depreciated such as land and infrastructure and those being depreciated.
The county received funding from the Department of Transportation Class B and C Road Allotment during the year ending December 31, 2015.
The county has three discrete component units. By far the largest of these units is Special Service District #2. The next largest component is the Special Service Fire District. The last component unit is Special Service District #1 which has minimal effect on the financials of the county.
The county includes these as separate legal entities in the report. Although legally separate, these component units are important because the county is financially accountable for them.
In 2015, the county collected more money in property taxes than budgeted, said Wilkey.
The restaurant tax, the sales and use tax and the sales tax monies were significantly lower than anticipated.
"Juab County had total revenues in 2015 of $4,078,886," said Wilkey. "In 2014, that total was $9,403,874."
Program revenues came from fees, fines and charges, operating grants, capital grants and contributions. General revenues came from property tax, sales tax, other taxes, interest, contributions and other.
In the fund financial statements, the restricted components consist of those that are legally segregated for a specific future use. For the 2015 audit, just completed, restricted components of the fund balance consisted of six items.
Juab County's financial statements focus on both the county as a whole, known as government wide, and on major individual funds. Those funds are resources segregated for the purposes of implementing specific activities in accordance with special regulations, restrictions or limitations.
"Our responsibility is to express opinions on these financial statements based on our audit," said Wilkey.
An unqualified opinion is also known as a clean opinion. He said that as auditor they were reporting an unqualified opinion if the financial statements are presumed to be free from material misstatements. |
