Audit Report: Kent Has Healthy Fund Balance
By Abby Luby
The Kent Town Board received the results of a 100-page audit report for 2018 from Robert Daniele, a partner of the accounting firm PKF O’Connor Davies, during its Dec. 3 meeting.
According to Daniele, field work was completed in June, and the report is dated Sept. 23, 2019.
Overall, the town has maintained a healthy fund balance, said Daniele.
The general fund summary, with the approved and adopted budget in the winter of 2017, shows that aggregate revenues were a little over $10 million and the expenditures were the same. In 2018, town revenues were up by $130,000, while expenditures were up $200,000. By the end of 2018, expenditures exceeded revenues a little over $550,000, according to Daniele.
“The town had a favorable variance of over $17,000,” he. “You also had a favorable variance on the expenditures’ side, of $190,000.”
One of the big line items was the transfer of an additional $400,000 – $372,000 of which was transferred to the highway fund to cover storm clean-ups.
A net change in the town’s fund balance was $324,000, which is what the town used in 2017 from its own resources to balance the budget.
Although Daniele pointed out that the overall fund balance was down about $500,000, he said the fund balance is healthy. “The general fund appears to be financially stable,” he said. “You held the line on expenditures. This is a healthy fund balance that you can utilize in future budgets.”
Additional line items discussed were monies used for debt service, which added up to just under $190,000. Also, $90,000 was assigned for future recycling projects; tuition for police came to $38,000.
Daniele noted: “Eighty percent of the town budget revenues are from property taxes, even though real property taxes haven’t gone up and the town has remained within the 2 percent property tax cap.”
Other sources of revenue in 2018 included a tow- implemented demolition code violation fee, increased safety inspection fees, and interest earnings, which were about 62 percent better than originally budgeted for, among other items.
Some of the rising costs included a small hike in the tax assessor’s office and rising medical insurance cost premiums for police.
Health insurance over the last three years has gone up 3 percent. A prepayment in January for health insurance using $106,000 garnered a deficit in that category, which Daniele said is “something that needs to be monitored.”
The full report can be seen at www.townofkentny.gov/sites/kentny/files/agendas/tbm_agenda_back-up_-_december_3_2019.pdf.
