County commissioners Jason Gainey, Robin Roberts, Andy Grooms, Chairman Rick Watkins, Justin Dawkins and Jeff Smart at February’s meeting.
Courtesy photo
ROCKINGHAM– Alan Thompson, of Thompson Price Scott Adams-Co, presented the Richmond County 2024 audit at the February Richmond County commissioners meeting on Tuesday.
“The main thing you hire us as an independent audit firm to do is to issue an opinion on the financial statements as a whole. We issue an unmodified report, which is a good report. I think I got good numbers for you too,” said Thompson to the commissioners.
Thompson shared that he’s satisfied with the numbers, as well as the compliance with appropriate County policies and estimates reflected in the financial statements.
“We were happy with all of those and then there were no difficulties encountered to perform the audit and there were no uncorrected misstatements,” he said. “There were no disagreements with management. Management did provide us with the representation letter dated today. We’re unaware that management consulted the outside accountants, auditors, etcetera.”
He then addressed an important recommendation for the commissioners, encouraging Richmond County to close out some of the funds that have been used for projects or grants from prior years. He also informed the board of the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) 101 Statement, a new standard set to take effect next year.
“We require a lot of work in the finance areas, so we’re just trying to make sure everybody’s aware of that,” he stated.
Turning to the county’s financial performance, Thompson provided a snapshot of Richmond County’s general fund for 2024. General fund revenues totaled $64.7 million, with total expenditures by department at $61.3 million. The county’s debt numbers also received attention. Thompson noted a significant drop in debt, which has nearly halved since 2019.
“If you were to go back to 2019, you see total debt at $40.5 million, you look at 2024, that number is $22.9 million, so you’ve got a significant decrease, not quite, but almost $18 million,” he said.
Thompson went on to explain changes in the state’s audit timeline. Historically, audits for counties and municipalities in North Carolina were due by Oct. 31, but the local government commission pushed the deadline back to Dec. 31, acknowledging the challenges faced by many counties in gathering information quickly enough to meet the previous deadline.
“Lots of challenges across the state in terms of getting that type of information out quick enough in order to actually do an audit prior to the October 31 deadline,” Thompson remarked.
Despite the challenges, Thompson was optimistic about the county’s financial health, highlighting the positive results in the audit, with general funds continuing to improve and debt decreasing.
“So overall, a very good report to the county. Kudos to you as a board, to your management and finance team as well,” he concluded.
Chairman Rick Watkins expressed his appreciation for Thompson and his team’s work.
“We certainly appreciate your work with us and our financial team and making that happen,” he said.
Watkins also reflected on the economic improvements in the county since his election in 2018.
“I think what has occurred since 2018 has really been powerful for the citizens of Richmond County. I was first elected to the board in 2018, I arrived and received a letter from the government commission saying, ‘hey hey, you guys are in trouble. You’ve got to move this around.’ So the board at that time started working with our team, Mr. Land, and we’ve turned that around from five and a half to over 36% in fund balance,” Watkins said. “During that time, just in practical training, we have reduced our debt by almost 50% and we have added to our savings account a tremendous amount of money. In this year, we’re adding three million to that savings account, and that’s important because when a county or municipality has unforeseen circumstances and challenges, it’s just like a rainy day fund at your home. You’re able to go and reach in and have the funds available to deal with immediately without having to borrow the funds to do something and go through that process.”
County Commissioner Jamie Gathings was absent from the meeting due to his 90-day suspension, which was issued on Monday.
Gathings is currently under investigation following complaints made by board members Justin Dawkins and Jason Gainey, as well as Richmond County employees. Gathings faces accusations of creating a hostile work environment by making staff feel threatened and intimidated.
Additionally, Dawkins and Gainey filed a separate complaint detailing verbal harassment, threatening behavior and defamatory statements against the commissioners.