Background:
The Comprehensive Annual Financial Report is prepared annually as part of
the state-required audit by an independent, certified and municipally licensed
auditor. In Ashland, the auditor reports to the Audit Committee established
by the City. The committee receives the auditor opinion, management letter
and annual financial reports prepared by staff. When satisfied with the reports
and related information, the committee forwards the report to council with
a recommendation to accept.
The auditor gave an unqualified opinion again this year but found no reportable
conditions to include in a management letter for fiscal year 2003-04. In
the prior year two reportable conditions relating to accounting controls
that may have been compromised were found and staff made sufficient progress
during this year on correcting those issues thus not requiring a repeat comment
on either. With this said, the auditor is not guaranteeing that there is
no work to be done but that nothing material came to their attention. The
Finance Department does work hard each year to improve operations and accounting
processes to better City operations and records.
The City and its component unit, the Parks & Recreation Commission,
implemented GASBS 34 in a two-step process over FY 2002-03 and FY 2003-04
with fixed assets being fully included as of this report. This required
conversion now provides comparative information in a more comparable, business
perspective that can be seen in the section called Management's Discussion
& Analysis. Within that section is a more detailed discussion of the
agency's financial health including changes in operational and general revenues,
operating expenses, capital outlay and improvements, debt service and the
City's bond rating.
The city is responsible for completeness and accuracy of the annual report.
The necessary auditor reports are included in the document and presented
on their letterhead.
Key places to look within the document are:
Pages
|
Information
|
| i - ix |
Transmittal letter from staff |
| xv |
Report of Audit Committee accepting the audit |
| 1 - 2 |
Auditor's unqualified opinion |
| 3 - 13 |
Management's Discussion & Analysis |
| 17 - 27 |
Basic Financial Statements |
| 31 - 58 |
Notes to General Purpose Financial Statements |
| 65 - 109 |
Supplementary reports, schedules and statistical tables |
| 114 - 126 |
Other required auditor comments and disclosures |
The annual report is a complex document containing a tremendous amount of
information. From an overview perspective, the City remains in a good financial
position with the net assets increasing slightly to $104,854,345. Included
in this amount is $956,778 in prior infrastructure (fixed assets) recognized
in this year as part of Ashland's compliance with Governmental Accounting
Standards Board Statement 34 requirements (GASBS 34).
Total City assets are down $1.1 million primarily in cash and investments
yet Parks and Recreation assets increased $0.5 million with a similar impact
on Parks' net asset balance.
As in the past, most funds are doing well when considering fund balances
yet several including Street, Capital Improvements and Telecommunications
funds require added attention during this and next fiscal years. |
