Auditor: Rayne ‘financially stable’

“Rayne is in a very stable and positive position financially,” said a local CPA in presenting the city audit during Monday night’s city council meeting.
Tiffany Thibodeaux, of Thibodeaux Accounting Co., LLC, explained that the low debt — only $500,000 in bonds — and $21 million in assets places the city on sound financial footing.
Thibodeaux said there were two findings reported for the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, 2016.
“The first is that the city does not have a staff person who has the qualifications and training to apply general accepted accounting principals (GAAP) in recording the entity’s financial transactions or preparing the financial statements,” Thibodeaux said.
“This is a finding that they will likely always have primarily because the city does not have the funds to hire someone with these qualifications.”
She explained that the city has evaluated the cost versus benefits of establishing internal controls over the preparation of financial statements in accordance with GAAP and has determined that it is in the best interest to outsource this task to its independent auditors.
The second finding is a budget violation, Thibodeaux said.
“By law, total actual revenues should not be 5 percent or less of total budgeted revenues,” she said. “The total actual revenues in the Section 8 Fund failed to meet total budgeted revenues by 5 percent or more.
“In short, management did not properly amend the budget and actual revenues fell short of budgeted revenues by more than 5 percent in that fund.”
By closely monitoring budget to actual comparisons near year end, the city should be able to make required budget amendments and resolve this finding, Thibodeaux said.
For the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, 2016, the city of Rayne’s government-wide revenues totaled $14.6 million. The government-wide program expenses totaled $41.5 million.
The assets purchased during the year totaled $873,949, the major purchases being equipment and improvements.
“The city’s assets totaled $20.9 million government-wide with deferred outflows of $1.3 million and the liabilities totaled $1.8 million,” she said. “The city of Rayne’s assets exceeded its liabilities at the close of the fiscal year by $14.1 million.
“The largest portion — 94 percent, or $15.3 million — of the net assets is investment in capital assets used to provide services to citizens.”
In other finance-related action, the council approved a resolution setting millage rates for fiscal 2017 on all property subject to taxation by the city
Millages were set at:
General Alimony 7.10 mills
Parks and Recreation 5.00 mills
“These are the same millage rates as last year,” said City Clerk Annette Cutrera. “In fact, these millage rates have bee the same since Oct. 11, 2004. They have not changes in 13 years.”
The council also approved a measure that would provide a credit card to be used by the mayor and/or the city clerk for the purchase of online items for the city.
“We’ve been using our own credit cards and getting reimbursed, but there have been some problems,” explained Mayor Charles “Chuck” Robichaux.
Dexter Harmon spoke against the measure, claiming that some credit card reimbursements paid the mayor in the past may not have been for city business.