MURFREESBORO – The town of Murfreesboro recently received a clean bill of financial health during an audit report.

Jim Winston with Winston, Williams, Creech, Evans & Co. presented the report in which the town received an unqualified opinion, meaning all of the town’s finances are in order.

Winston said the town exceeded its expected budget on revenues with the original budget set at $1.75 million and the final budget at $1.89 million.

The actual amount of revenues reflected $1.96 million.

For expenditures, $1.92 million was originally budgeted with the final budget number being $2.13 million. The actual expenditure number came in at $2.04 million.

“We were $9,492 favorable on our expenditures,” he said.

Winston said the town used only $17,966 from its appropriated fund balance of the $160,084 earmarked to balance the final budget equating a $142,118 favorable balance.

“That’s a good thing,” he said. “We didn’t use as much as we thought we would.”

In the town’s general fund unassigned fund balance the amount grew from $719,467 to $806,636.

The percentage in the unassigned fund also grew from 36 percent to 39 percent.

Winston added he was happy with that number as it was no where near the 8 percent minimum required by the LGC (Local Government Commission).

Winston gave the break down on where the town’s expenditures went with 49 percent going public safety, 22 percent to general government and 12 percent to environmental protection/solid waste.

The town’s proprietary (water and sewer) fund balance grew from $4.07 million to $4.46 million.

Winston said the town’s tax collection increased by $107,000 to $850,719 for last year. The collection percentage went from 92 percent to 94 percent.

“It’s a little bit below the state average (96.6 percent), but again, we’re moving in the right direction,” he said.