Tooele City got a clean audit report for the 2014-2015 fiscal year.
It also received a few recommendations for improvement, which the city agreed to follow.
Randy Jensen of Salt Lake City-based WSRP, LLC presented the city’s 2015 independent audit during last week’s city council meeting. Jensen named the company’s three recommendations as part of his report.
“There were a few minor things,” he said. “Aside from that, the city got a very good report.”
First, WSRP recommended the city maintain up-to-date listings of water rights and check those totals against the general ledger each reporting period. The recommendation comes after WSRP noted during 2015, the city identified water rights that had not been recorded. In addition, the settlement reached in the Overlake lawsuit required the city to transfer $6.8 million in water rights to Tooele Associates.
The city made an adjusting entry in its books to record both the previously unaccounted-for water rights and the transferred water rights, said Shannon Wimmer, the city’s assistant finance director.
Second, WSRP noted the Governmental Accounting Standards Board requires cities to pay the same rate as customers to its enterprise funds. According to Wimmer, Tooele City does pay the same rate, but some of its properties do not have water meters installed so the city estimates its water use based on acreage.
The city is confident its estimates are as accurate as possible. However, it is currently working on installing water meters on all its properties, Wimmer added. WSRP recommended only that the city continue with that work.
Third, WSRP recommended the city implement a control to make sure written minutes of public meetings are posted to the Utah Public Notice Website within three business days of the meeting.
According to the audit, the city’s total value, minus its debts and other financial obligations, is approximately $190.6 million — including the value of land, buildings, investments and other assets owned by the city. The audit reported a $5.6 million increase over the city’s 2014 net value of $185 million.
The increase is mainly due to the $6.8 million in water rights the city transferred to Tooele Associates, according to WSRP.
Because the city maintains legal ownership of the water rights as required by the Utah Constitution, and the water rights will be used to develop real estate projects within the city, the transferred water rights resulted in increased assets during 2015, Wimmer said.
Jensen said overall, WSRP would give Tooele City an A on its audit.
“Our opinion is the financial statements are clean,” he said. “The balance sheet shows good strength of good management. … The city is very financially sound.”