Lori Graham
Contributing Writer
MONTGOMERY CO. – The Montgomery County Board of Supervisors received positive financial news at its regular meeting, held Monday, Jan. 22.
John Aldridge with Brown, Edwards & Company, L.L.P. presented Montgomery County’s Annual Comprehensive Financial Report for Fiscal Year 2023, which ended June 30, 2023.
The county received positive marks, showing a good financial positioning in the new 2024 year.
“The way it works is, every locality in the state of Virginia has to have an audit done,” Aldridge said. “It’s on the June 30th year-end, and that audit has to be filed with the state by Dec. 15th. So, that is what we are here tonight, to just go over that audit.”
Included within the audit is the economic development, PSA, and the school board, Aldridge said, which was completed on time this year compared to previous years when it had been late.
The county, according to the financial analysis results, is in a stable financial position with just over three months of reserve or unassigned funds totaling $38 million.
Additionally, capital improvements are listed in the report at, “$43 million in cash and $98 million in investments, a total of $142 million,” Aldridge said.
Although some of the projects have not happened yet from borrowed money, almost $4 million has been earned in the investments already made, the audit report shows. Aldridge did point out that it is not good to have borrowed money earmarked for a project, but not being allocated yet.
County Administrator Angie Hill said, “When we talk about our capital projects funds, we talk about the schools and county’s funds separately. For the financial reporting purposes, they are combined. The $90 million that John is referring to that we borrowed is for the Christiansburg High School renovation.”
“That’s a unique thing again, for you all that are new in Virginia, schools can’t issue debt,” Aldridge said. “So, if a school needs to build a building, the locality, meaning the primary government, for example in your case, Montgomery County has to issue the debt. The debt stays on your books because they don’t have the ability to tax to pay for that debt.”
Aldridge also pointed out the report included an audit of the $35 million of federal expenditures this year by Montgomery County. The largest categories are typically education and public safety within counties or districts.
“The cool thing is though…in testing all those programs, there were no instances of non-compliance that we found,” Aldridge said. “We don’t look at all of it, we look at a percentage. In all those programs we looked at, we are able to say that you complied. No instances there of money being spent that we tested, inappropriately. So, again, that was something to be proud of.”
This is unique, according to Aldrige, because of the many people that are involved in these programs and how they play a part in money spent for various programs in the County. Some of the examples of programs mentioned during the meeting by Aldridge are school activities and special education departments. There are many others listed in the report, available in its entirety at www.montva.com.
Supervisor Sara Bohn pointed out that the report also showed a creation of approximately 2100-2200 jobs but was interested in seeing the unemployment rate of the County for the past 10 years, which was not included in the audit.
“Generally, we are lower than the state of Virginia,” Bohn said.
Hill confirmed that Montgomery County does typically have an unemployment rate far lower than the state’s rate.
