JACKSON – Northampton County is making progress catching up on old financial audits. Just a few months since they received the FY17 report, the Board of Commissioners received the FY18 audit report at their regular meeting here Aug. 5.

Alan Thompson, a representative of the company who completed the audit work, said the findings were similar to previous audits because the same issues were still happening during this time period. As previously reported by the News Herald, Northampton County had gotten behind on audit reports due to a variety of issues, including staff turnover and problems with bank reconciliations.

This audit covered the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2017 through June 30, 2018.

“The numbers look good,” Thompson reported about the county’s financial position.

According to the audit report, general fund revenues for FY18 totaled $33,230,633 with the majority of these funds coming from ad valorem taxes. This number was down about $1.2 million from the previous year’s audit. The general fund expenditures totaled $30,213,279. Human Services continued to be the county’s largest expenditure, followed by Public Safety and Education.

Revenues over expenditures totaled a little over $3 million, which is up from the $1.2 million difference in the previous year.

The total fund balance in the General Fund was $15,187,628.

“That’s a healthy number,” Thompson said.

The percentage of unassigned fund balance was almost 40 percent, which continued a positive trend of improvement from previous years. Thompson noted they were well above the minimum threshold of 8.33 percent required by law.

The tax collection percentage reported by Thompson for FY18 was 95.56 percent, a slight increase from the previous year.

Overall, Thompson said the financial numbers looked positive for the county during the time period.

After the presentation, Commissioner Geneva Faulkner motioned to approve the contract for the firm to proceed with the audit for FY19, which would be the most recent audit the county needs to complete. Commissioner Joyce Buffaloe seconded the motion, which passed with a unanimous vote from the Board.

“It looks good,” said Chairman Charles Tyner of the county finances. “We’re are proud of where we are financially. We’re better this year than we were last year.”