By Claudette Olivier
Church Point News
Church Point’s finances are in good shape.
Burton Kolder, certified public accountant with Kolder Slaven said, “Y’all are sitting good right now, in my opinion. I think y’all have just enhanced it over the past three months that you have been in office. I like what I am hearing, and when you had the meeting with Spanky (Mayor Ryan Meche), he was telling me some of these things.”
He continued, “It all looks good guys — just keep up what y’all are doing. I think its a very good report for the town. We just need to keep that trend going forward.”
Kolder and his son, Brad Kolder, presented the Town of Church Point’s 2017-2018 fiscal year audit report during a special meeting on March 28. The council voted unanimously to accept the audit, with the exception of Alderman Chris Lebas, who was absent for the vote.
Prior to giving the report, Kolder noted that this year’s audit had no management letter comments.
“A management letter comment goes to Baton Rouge with this blue bound report,” Kolder said. “It was to be sent to Baton Rouge. It’s public record and so on, but that’s normally some findings that are more severe that need to be brought out. We only had one in 2017. We have none this year, so that’s good.”
He continued, “We had some severity with the general fund and how our fund balance was down to very critical levels. I am happy to say there was a big improvement this year, and we are hoping to see more improvement moving forward.
Kolder said he did have four verbal comments, and those comments were discussed with the town’s administration
“Verbal comments are not as severe,” Kolder said.
He continued, “They were not severe enough to warrant them putting them in the report, but it’s something that we wanted to point out that they (the town’s administration) want to try and modify and so on and so forth.”
One of those comments was regarding the enforcement of town policies, specifically the one for cutting off the utility services of individuals who have not paid his or her bill within a certain period of time.
Meche said, “At 60 days, we cut off, not matter what, and if they went 120 (days), that was, we (the previous town administration) were actually turning a blind eye to it, and that’s a big no-no. We started doing a tag on the door. Two months after you have not paid, we have to cut off. On one month, if it’s above 50 percent of the deposit, we have to cut off.”
Meche said that council is considering increasing the town’s utility deposits.
Kolder then turned the report presentation over to his son, Brad, and he discussed the town’s utility operations.
“In sewer, total revenues did increase from 2017, when they were $455,000, to almost $500,000, a little bit below at $499,000, so we had a healthy, about 10 percent increase, in the revenues there,” he said.
“It’s really a healthy sewer department. Most of the municipalities we do audits for, a lot of them have operating loses, so to see an operating profit in a sewer department is not that common, so you want to be commended for that.”
Brad said the report on the town’s water department operations are in similar to the sewer report.
“Revenues are up from $654,000 to $692,000, so a healthy increase there (in water).”
“The trends are all good here,” Brad said in relation to the trends in the town’s sewer and water departments.
Alderman Chris Lebas said, “This is the kind of report I love. The numbers, I love. The numbers are awesome.”
Kolder said that $8,947 a day was spent last year to run the town and the year before that, it was $9,796 per day.
“I think your mayor has talked to you about, in his analysis, you’ve got a lot of positive things here,” Kolder said. “We do need some equipment.”
You need to buy that equipment. You have the funds to buy it, and you have some further savings coming down the road.”
Burton then gave his summary for the city’s operations:
Budget Revenues: two sales tax issues — more than $1 million and other taxes, including franchise taxes and ad valorem taxes, budgeted at $1,601,000 came in a $1,684,000.
Licenses and permits — budgeted $220,000, brought in $221,000; intergovernmental revenues — budgeted $188,000, brought in $219,000; charges for services — $4,826 budgeted, brought in $5,600; continuing education fund, $3,500 budgeted, brought in $4,060; fines and forfeitures, budgeted $238,000, brought in $213,618; utility charges — budgeted $1,188,000, brought in $1,190,000; miscellaneous — budgeted $85,000, came in at $120,000. Total revenues for the town of Church Point, budgeted $3,529,886, brought in $3,660,286.
Expenditures: administration — budgeted $634,000, spent $628,000; police department — budgeted $958,000, spent $939,000; Public Works — budgeted $542,000 spent $518,000; Community Center — spent $24,000, came in close to budget; culture and recreation —$126,900 budgeted, spent $131,700; utility — budgeted $1,006,000 spent $1,008,000; debt service — were spending about $80,000 a year, but nothing for this year because the street bonds were paid; capital outlay — $28,000 spent; and total expenditures $3,321,000 budgeted, spent $3,279,000.
Kolder also discussed the town’s: assets, cash and interest bearing deposits, capital assets, debts, spending and unrestricted net position.
Kolder said that $8,947 a day was spent last year to run the town and the year before that, it was $9,796 per day.
“I think your mayor has talked to you about, in his analysis, you’ve got a lot of positive things here,” Kolder said. “We do need some equipment. You need to buy that equipment. You have the funds to buy it, and you have some further savings coming down the road.”
For the town’s full audit report, visit lla.la.gov.