The Town of Church Point is debt free for the first time in more than 20 years.
Burton Kolder, certified public accountant with Kolder Slaven, said, “You are debt free. I know you know this, but as of September 2019, you are completely debt free in all areas.”
He continued, “This is the first time (the town has been debt free) since I have been doing the work here. The auditor said that they are debt free, because they really are. As long as I have been doing the work, and even before that, they were never debt-free. It’s over 20 years that I have been doing it (the audit), and you have never been debt-free.”
Kolder and his son Brad Kolder presented the Town of Church Point’s 2018/2019 Fiscal Year Audit Report during a special meeting on Feb. 18.
Mayor Ryan “Spanky” Meche said, “The biggest thing that it doesn’t say on here is we are debt free and we put away, in CDs, I think close to $600,000.”
The council voted unanimously to accept the audit, and the audit will now be sent to the state to become public record.
“Overall, you have made a lot strides this first year, your initial year in office, that this administration has been in office and you have made major strides in getting the infrastructure in much better shape,” Burton said.
Prior to giving the report, Kolder noted that this year’s audit had no management letter comments.
Kolder said he did have six verbal comments, and those comments were discussed in detail with the town’s administration.
“They weren’t severe type things, but it’s stuff that we saw that maybe the administration could do a little bit better or possibly modify certain things,” Burton said.
There was also one internal control finding in the report.
“All it is is about inadequate segregation of duties,” Burton said. “You have such a small group of people (working) here that they have got to overlap.”
He recommended hiring additional people or look at documentation, like having the mayor or town clerk sign off on a few things.
Kolder then turned the report presentation over to his son, Brad, and he discussed the town’s utility operations, starting with the Sewer Department.
“(From) 2018-2019, it’s down a little bit, $498,000 last year to $490,000 in the current year, so about an $8,000 decrease in revenue,” he said.
Brad said there were increased expenses with salaries, repairs and maintenance and legal and professional, mostly engineering, fees at the Sewer Department, and the Sewer Department is operating at a loss, which was not the case last year.
Brad said the report on the town’s water department operations is similar to the sewer report.
“You have a revenue decrease from (about) $692,000 to $668,000, so that’s almost $25,000 of a decrease in revenue,” Brad said. “If you look at the expenses (for the Water Department) all listed out, the expenses increased.”
Brad said those increases occurred in salaries, auto expense, operating supplies and chemicals.
Meche asked Burton to explain to those at the meeting what happens when a customer’s water account goes two months overdue.
Meche said that in addition to cutting off water to those who are two months behind on a bill, the town will also cut off the water of customers that go over 50 percent of his or her deposit.
“That is the state law.” Meche said.
“That is not mayor Ryan Meche making that up. It’s the state.”
Meche added, “It’s out of my hands. People ask me to help them. I can’t and then they say I’m lying.”
During the meeting, Burton gave his summary for the city’s operations: tax revenues, property tax, sales taxes and franchise taxes — budgeted $1,672,00, brought in $1,696,000; licenses and permits — budgeted $225,000, brought in $230,000; intergovernmental revenues — budgeted $118,700, brought in $116,530; charges for services — $4,500 budgeted, brought in $5,700; continuing education fund — budgeted $2,100, brought in $2,200; fines and forfeitures — budgeted $212,500, brought in $219,700; utility charges — budgeted $1,178,000, brought in $1,159,000; miscellaneous — budgeted $193,000, brought in $202,000 and total revenues for the town — budgeted $3,607,000, brought in $3,632,000.
Expenditures: administration — budgeted $731,000, spent $778,000; public safety — budgeted $961,000, spent $967,000; public works — budgeted $636,000, spent $634,900; community center — budgeted $36,000, spent $32,700; culture and recreation — budgeted $106,000, spent $101,000; utility fund — budgeted $1,100,000, spent $1,113,000; principal retirement — budgeted $100,000; capital outlay — budgeted $375,000, spent $388,000; and total expenditures — budgeted $4,047,000, spent $4,116,000.
Kolder also discussed the town’s: assets, cash and interest bearing deposits, capital assets, debts, spending and unrestricted net position.
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