Roodhouse receives positive audit

By Editor | November 21, 2023 |

By Carmen Ensinger

Roodhouse Council members received good news from its auditor at the Nov. 8 council meeting.
Suzanne Steckel, with the auditing firm of Zumbahlen, Eyth, Surratt, Foote and Flynn, Ltd. said the total cash balance for governmental funds in the city is at $934,000 which is up about $150,000 over last year.
“You have about eight months of cash reserve on hand, which is very good for all government funds,” Steckel said. “For the general fund, we are sitting at about four months reserve and that is about the same as last year. One of the exciting things we can report is that you no longer have any inter-fund balances between funds, which has been a lot of years coming, so that is a really good thing.”
In the area of revenue and expenses. The total revenue came in at $1.2 million. Broken down into major and non-major funds, the major funds were up about $290,000 over last year and the non-major up about $120,000.
Expenses came in at $1.1 million, which show an increase of about $150,000 over last year.
“This is due to a couple of things,” Steckel said. “You had a capital outlay of $67,000 that you used to purchase a John Deere Gator and you used some of the funds when you added the 2022 Ford Explorer to the police department. You also purchased a new mower for $13,000.”
In the area of proprietary funds, which are all of the utility funds, such as gas, electric and water, this section is broken down into two sections. The cash the city can spend and restrictive cash which is designated “off limits” because of the USDA loan requirements in the water fund.
“So, that $1.6 million and the $800,000 in those funds gets your total cash in your utility funds to right at $2.4 million,” Steckel said. “That is up about $210,000 over last year, so your cash is headed in the right direction for those funds.”
Overall revenue in the proprietary funds was up about $70,000 to bring it to right at $3 million. Expenses were up around $120,000 to bring them to right at $3 million as well. The electric fund was up about $40,000 in expenses, gas was up about $20,000 in expenses and water was up about $60,000 in expenses. Sewer stayed about the same.
Total loans increased by about $43,000 – the John Deere mower had a loan and a partial loan on the Ford Explorer. On a positive note, however, $178,000 of debt was paid off during the year bringing the balance of debt for the city to a little over $5.8 million.