Henry & Horne delivers Paradise Valley Town Council annual audit at Town Hall
By Terrance Thornton | Digital Free Press
Earlier this month, Paradise Valley Town Council accepted a clean audit report courtesy of Scottsdale-based Henry & Horne revealing a municipality in great financial form.
At its final meeting of 2022, Paradise Valley Town Council unanimously accepted the findings of the annual financial report, which is required by state statue, Thursday, Dec. 8, at Town Hall, 6401 E. Lincoln Drive.
Led by Paradise Valley Chief Financial Officer Lindsay Duncan, the audit report offered local elected leaders a detailed look at the finances of the municipality.
“We are still working on the popular annual financial report that is associated with this, and that will be prepared and presented to you at a future date,” Ms. Duncan told Town Council but offered the audit partner from Henry & Horne to present findings.
‘Clean audit’ presented to Paradise Valley Town Council
Brian Hemmerle, a CPA at the Henry & Horne financial services firm, serves as the lead audit partner for the Town of Paradise Valley.
“The audit is required by statue and it is not an audit outside or something for fraud or anything of that nature — this is really looking at your financial statements and making sure those documents are stated correctly,” he said at the onset of his presentation to Town Council. “We do provide an opinion and that is a clean audit this year.”
With an expenditure limitation — the total amount of money the Town of Paradise Valley is allowed to spend, according to state law — at $44,291,203 million, the town spent $27,160,894 million of which is under the spending threshold a total of $17,058,309, Mr. Hemmerle reported to Town Council.
“As you see, you are well underneath the limitation,” he explained pointing out another, one-year expenditure of note was the use of Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds.
“We did go through that spending to make sure it was in accordance with the United State Treasury and you received a clean opinion on that report.”
The Town of Paradise Valley spent $2,465,450 of federal funds through the Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds program, records show.
Overall, Mr. Hemmerle explained, the Town of Paradise Valley is in excellent financial position.
“All positive trends here —- assets are up, liabilities are down. Your equity is up and your revenues and expenses are relatively flat but up a bit,” he said. “Your net position fund balance is healthy and continues to grow. Enterprise funds including sewer fund, fire service fund and non-major business type alarm funds are all relatively flat, nothing alarming.”
Mr. Hammerle points out municipal coffers can operate for a staggering 1,150 days with cash on-hand.
“Days of cash on-hand is very healthy; almost 1,150 days of cash on-hand,” he said. “General Fund dollars accounts for about 30% of the fund.”
Paradise Valley Town Manager Jill Keimach explains the audit report is nothing short of excellent.
“I would lie to express my appreciation to Henry & Horne for an excellent audit and to our CFO Lindsay Duncan for having the data to make it look as good as it does,” she quipped following the December presentation. “It is very impressive what financial situation this town is in. I can’t emphasize enough how impressive this audit is, as it has been for the past several years.”
