JAY — A senior accountant with the town’s auditing firm gave selectpersons an overview of the audit and financial status for the year ending June 30, 2014, on Monday.
“I think your town is a very healthy town. I think everything is running pretty well,” Bill Hall of RHR Smith & Co. told the board at a workshop at Spruce Mountain High School.
Hall has conducted the annual audit for several years. The most important pages in the audit report are the first three, where the company forms an opinion of the town’s finances, he said.
“You have a non-opinion, which is good,” he said.
“I don’t think the town of Jay has ever had a bad audit” in the years he has done it, he said.
The town had $6.7 million in its unassigned fund balance as of June 30, 2014. Of that amount, $5.8 million is cash, he said.
The figure does not take into account the $750,000 the town factored into the tax commitment in August 2014 to offset taxes, or the $829,258 and interest for a tax abatement selectpersons granted to Verso Androscoggin LLC in January, Town Manager Shiloh LaFreniere said Wednesday.
The $6.7 million undesignated fund doesn’t mean it is all in the account. It is the amount that would be there if everything came in, including all taxes paid, Town Financial Director Lisa Bryant said Wednesday.
It is good to see a town put money into reserve, Hall said Monday night.
“It is always good to have a lot of reserve,” he said.
Auditors recommend that towns have three months worth of operating costs in the fund to protect the town in case of emergencies.
According to the audit report, Jay had $17.8 million come in between July 1, 2013, and June 30, 2014. Of that amount, $15 million was from property taxes and $1.8 million was in intergovernmental revenue.
The town had $16.2 million in expenses, including the cost of municipal government. The town also paid $8.4 million for education and $1 million for Franklin County taxes.
Hall said the auditing company treats the town’s Sewer Department like a for-profit operation. The Sewer Department is considered an enterprise fund.
The total assets are $4.27 million. Of that amount, a net $1.3 million is attributed to land, buildings, vehicles, machinery and equipment for the Jay system and an investment of $2.8 million in the joint venture with Livermore Falls for the Wastewater Treatment Plant in that town.
Over the years since the sewer fund was established, it has borrowed $1 million from the town’s general fund, Hall said.
The sewer fund is paying out more than what it is taking in, he said.
Sewer costs are paid for through a combination of sewer user fees and general taxation.
Selectpersons have steadily increased the sewer user fees for several years and on July 1, 2011, changed the method to calculate them. The town went from calculating the fees based on a per-unit method to sewer rates based on water use per sewer connection. The effort was to have people who use more water pay more and those who use less to pay less.
The idea was to also decrease the amount of money needed to be raised by townwide taxation for the system.
Hall said the Sewer Department’s general fund increased from $1.4 million as of July 1, 2013 to $1.5 million as of June 30, 2014.
dperry@sunmediagroup.net
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