By Myrna Trauntvein
Times-News Correspondent
Nephi City Council received the audit report for
1999-2000 at council meeting on Tuesday and were told that
the city is in the least riskiest category of cities
according to auditing principles.
"Category No. Three," said Ked Black, of Peterson and
Associates, "is considered the rating applied to the cities
with the most risk and No. One is applied to those with the
least risk. Nephi falls within the bounds of Category
One."
The city, he said, is getting a good return on
investments which indicates a wise management and
stewardship of funds. Bonds and repayments are planned for
and funds set aside.
"Some money has been set aside for future purchases and
$2 million is in a restricted fund to be used to meet bond
requirements."
Council members also learned that there were some
interesting contradictions in a few categories of the
budget.
One of those, Black said, was in the salaries and wages
category. "Salaries and wages were up but benefits were
down," said Black. "I don't know how that could happen but I
suspect it was because of coding."
Black said he would investigate further, determine what
the reason was, and contact the city staff to report.
More was spent in the natural gas department than was
budgeted but that is no longer of grave concern. More
quickly than was planned, the department is growing and the
funds taken in are coming to the level where the fund will
be profitable.
"The natural gas department is slowly coming out of the
red."
Black said council members should study the operating
revenue and expenditure of enterprise funds category on page
35 of the report.
There is ample operating revenue, again due to good
management, and all of the enterprise funds had positive
balances.
Funds were up but cash was down.
Property taxes collected were less than the amount the
city had forecast. "The lower collection had to do with the
city not getting the tax information from the state in a
timely manner."
This year, the city library books will be valued. "We
need to bring in the city infrastructure and this was a good
place to start," he said.
The library needs to deposit book fines and money
collected within three days of receipt and the city needs to
consider making the investment of networking the computer
system.
"The city would find a lot of benefits from networking
the system," he said.
Black said the state wanted the city to break out the
money the city receives for liquor law enforcement. The
$3,000 fund needs to be listed as a line item and its use
needs to be specifically identified.
Black and Kim Peterson, also with Peterson and
Associates, attended the meeting on Tuesday to present the
report. Both were a bit embarrassed to discover that all the
copies which should have been left with the council and the
city were missing one page.
"That is what we get for relying on technology without
double checking," said Peterson.
As soon as the missing page is returned, a copy will be
in the city offices for interested townspeople to view.
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