City's Financial Statements meet with approval from auditors

City Council put in motion the path of approval for the City's 2017 Financial statements on Monday evening, as Council members received one more report on the financial documents and then voted to accept the final notes from the City's financial department.

With  Mr. Steve Kietzmann, an accountant with Carlyle Shepherd and Company in attendance to provide his overview, Council members listened with interest as he explained the process that the auditors used to review the City's financial reports and procedures.

Mr. Kietzmann made note of some of the issues that were reviewed during the overview, including elements related to Watson Island and the city's landfill plans moving forward, noting that the accounting firm had held some in depth discussion with the city's management representatives on those issues to gain a better understanding of exactly where the city is at before they were able to offer their opinion on the financial statements.

As part of the review of their efforts, he stated that the firm had completed their work and that the they believe that the financial statements are materially correct and once City Council has formally adopted the statements, the accounting firm will express their unqualified audit opinion on the city's financials.

Council members then were offered the opportunity to ask questions related to the Financial Statements, exploring themes such as the audit process, how the city determines such elements as the unappropriated and appropriated operating surplus, the payment of fees to contractors, as well as some notes related to the city's airport loans and the impact that those loans have had on recent changes to the Airport Board make up.

To bring the financial overview to an end, Mayor Brain noted that he was pleased that the city is looking in good shape and offered his praise for the work of the financial department and the team that worked on the city's financial affairs.

You can review a more expansive account of the discussion on those themes from our City Council Timeline feature here.

As well you can review the full discussion between Council, the City's CFO and the Carlyle Shepherd representative from the City's Video archive.  The overview begins at the two minute mark.



For more items related to the City's budget process see our archive page here.

More items related to Council Discussion topics can be reviewed from our Archive page here.