Extending from the external audit that was approved Dec. 27, the City of Caliente has approved and submitted a plan of corrective action to the Nevada Department of Taxation as of March 6. Findings questioned five components from the June 2013 audit, and provided a corrective action for each component.
The audit found that the Judicial function was over expended in the General Fund with $17,257. Individual funds that were over expended included the municipal court AA fee special revenue fund, $140, the water enterprise fund, $24,030, and the electric enterprise fund, $70,194.
As a corrective action the City Council will monitor the budget monthly, and will consider reductions in “staff and operating costs to ensure budgetary compliance,” according to the plan. For the water and electric enterprise funds, several line items being over the adopted budget was the reason for over expenditures. The City plans to monitor these budgets monthly as well, specifically near year end.
The second finding was for a deficit in ending fund balances. The planning special revenue fund was the only balance found with a deficit, $1,170. The City’s corrective action is to reduce contractual expenditures, and eliminate any deficit from the general or room tax fund, if revenues are not received as planned.
The third finding was that the City did not properly advertise its intent to augment the general fund, and did not forward the augmentation to the Department of Taxation. Kelli Haluzak, the newly-named City Clerk, has reviewed the NRS statutes and will advertise all future augmentations correctly along with forwarding the augmentation to the Department of Taxation when it is approved by the City Council.
The quarterly financial reports were the fourth finding, where NRS statutes require the City to file with the Department of Taxation quarterly financial reports. These were not done in a timely fashion in the pst, but after reviewing statutes, Haluzak will be responsible for filing the reports with the Department of Taxation.
The final finding from the audit concerned grand fundings from March 2006. In an agreement with the United States of America Army Corps of Engineers, wherein the grant could be used for the purchase of construction equipment to be used in construction of local flood control, a federal financial assistance audit for the City for the year ending June 30, 2009 questioned costs for equipment totaling $530,762. The City has been in contact with the Army Corps of Engineers to find out whether the purchases fall within the scope of the grant. If the Army Corps of Engineers find the expenditures to be noncompliant, the City will repay the expenditures, $295,000 from the City Streets fund, and $235,762 from the waste enterprise fund. The purchase of a garbage truck was what the expenditure was used for, and the City would enter into a medium term note for 10 years. Estimated monthly payments would cause the City to raise rates paid by users of the waste service to repay the loan. The increase to users of the service would be approximately 18 percent.
