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Annual audit looks good overall for city of Paradise By
Joe Rowley PARADISE -- Independent auditor Diana Cannell gave the town an unqualified favorable report as she presented the annual audit to the town council Wednesday evening. As she braved playful teasing from Mayor Lee Atwood and council members, Cannell told the group that the town looks good and is even improving. "The audit went well this year," said Cannell, a certified public accountant with Peterson Allred Jackson. While the town did go over budget on two items, the financial situation is good, she said. "Out of all the state compliance requirements that we check, that was your only finding, and to me that's kind of a minor finding," said Cannell. The town exceeded budgeted amounts in general government expense and streets and highways expense by nearly $55,000, but the money was really all there, Cannell said. Atwood said the reason for the difference in the budget was that he and the Council neglected to actually appropriate funds for planned projects to the streets account. "What I probably did is that we opened the budget and I knew we had the funds in the checking account and so I just didn't think about it," Atwood said. Atwood said that next year they will be more careful about appropriating funds properly "and we're skating with no parenthesis." In comparison to other small towns, Cannell said, Paradise did well in its annual audit. She said that most small towns struggle with budget compliance. Cannell also said that the audit has improved each year since she began doing it six years ago. "When I first started doing this audit and now (the difference) is like night and day," she said. "Those first three years it was very hard." The improvement is due to better record keeping by town recorder Marianne Jensen and the Council, Cannel said. Initially, getting the proper documentation was difficult. "It's just what we were left with," Atwood said about when the current council took office. "When you're elected and you take office in January, you're left with six months of someone else's stuff. You don't know what's going on." Revenue for the town went up by $2,000 in the year ended June 30, 2001, to $228,988. Expenses also jumped to $236,000, creating a deficit of more than $7,000, cutting into last year's surplus of nearly $90,000. Most of that expense was because of several road improvement projects, Cannell said, and road expenses increased by nearly $66,000. Overall total town assets increased by $60,000, leaving the town in a good position financially, Cannell said. She told Atwood that the fee for next year's audit would stay the same. "I raised it for everyone else, but I don't want to have to haggle with Lee," she said, jokingly. "No one gives me a harder time than Lee Atwood." "I do give them a hard time over there, but they deserve it," Atwood said. "You tell us how terrible it was before and how it has gotten better, but we still pay the same rate?" asked Councilman Aaron Cranney, joining in on the teasing. The Council also decided Wednesday not to donate any money to a project to map potential geological hazards. The Bear River Association of Governments (BRAG) is seeking the money to supplement a $60,000 grant awarded to the Utah Geological Survey. The organization must raise another $20,000 on its own to get the grant and BRAG asked Paradise to give $800. Councilman Dave Anderson opposed the idea because any hazards that would be mapped would be outside of town corporate boundaries. Mayor Atwood and the other council members also felt that the project would not help the town, citing past bad experiences donating to the Cache Initiative, which they also said did not benefit the town. "I don't think Paradise people ought to pay for it," Councilmember
Dave Anderson said. "These kinds of things are just to give somebody's
brother a job." |
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