Maureen Carpenter, president and CEO for the Barren County Economic Authority, speaks during the authority's meeting Friday. Melinda J. Overstreet / Glasgow News 1
By Melinda J. Overstreet / Glasgow News 1
The Barren County Economic Authority received a “clean opinion” in its audit report for the fiscal year that ended June 30 at its recent meeting and accepted a bid for the design of two potential speculative buildings in the South Cooper Industrial Park.
Jeff Carter, an accountant with Taylor, Polson & Co., delivered and discussed the key points of the audit report at the authority’s meeting on Friday.
The letter introducing the actual audit report states that, “In our opinion, the financial statements referred to above present fairly, in all material respects, the respective financial position of the governmental activities and each major fund of the [authority] as of June 30, 2022, and the respective changes in financial position thereof for the year then ended in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America.”
The net position, in a snapshot form, compared with the same time the prior year showed that current assets, mostly made up of cash and receivables, had increased by about $25,000, restricted assets decreased about $150,000, but capital assets increased by about $440,000, so the total assets had increased by about $300,000 over the course of that year to roughly $4.2 million.
Jeff Carter, an accountant with Taylor, Polson & Co., discusses key points in the audit report delivered to the Barren County Economic Authority on Friday for the fiscal year that ended June 30. Melinda J. Overstreet / Glasgow News 1
Current liabilities had decreased about $21,000 and long-term liabilities had decreased about $109,000, so total liabilities went from $470,466 to $339,543.
The total net position, taking into account funds restricted for capital projects and economic development and unrestricted funds, increased by more than $400,000, according to the report.
Carter discussed some of those figures in the 30-page report and the factors impacting them in a little more detail. In conclusion, the report stated that no deficiencies in internal control that the firm considered to be a material weakness were identified during the audit.
After Carpenter provided her monthly president/CEO report on activities, including meeting with existing businesses to promote retention and/or expansion. She said that, overall, there’s a positive outlook.
“I think most of them have a full workforce or a close to having a full workforce. They have increased their wages and benefits; those are some of the tactics they’ve been doing. Supply chain is starting to pick up a little bit for some of them,” she said. “Not a lot of plans for expansions in 2023, but, listen, if everything’s running smooth and they’re doing well and having some growth, we’re in a good place.”
She said there are 17 active projects, with 10 site visits with nine companies, with regard to business attraction.
An update on South Cooper had been requested previously by authority member Mark Bowman, she said, providing a spreadsheet with that information.
Phase I was preconstruction due diligence with the land, she said, and that cost of a total of about $50,000. The available funds included an industrial revenue bond of $5 million, state road funds for U.S. 68-Ky. 80, land sale proceeds of $335,000 and a county CARES Fund disbursement of $1 million for water and sewer work, for a total of roughly $6.8 million. Phase II land development relocation of fiber and water lines is costing a total of around $2 million, according to the figures provided.
“So that’s what we’ve done this year,” she said, prompting those present to continue to the next page, then adding, “This is what we’re getting ready to move into.”
Available funds for Phase III include remaining bond funds of $3.45 million and $1 million from American Rescue Plan Act funds for water and sewer development. Nearly $2.1 million has been requested from other potential sources. This phase includes utility installations, possibly the back part of an internal road, signage and the design of speculative buildings for Lots 1 and 7, she said, and she added some tentative cost figures to finish grading the other lots and other work. Based on those estimates, if they get the other requested funds, they would need less than $100,000 to finish preparing the sites, “which really isn’t significant. I think we can raise those funds through grants and other funding sources.” That would not include the cost of spec buildings.
She said this should give them an idea, though, of what they can accomplish with what they already have.
Carpenter also said they have one definite and one possible new applicant for the small-business loans they offer. They have about $60,000 still available for three loans in addition to the two they’re already made, she said.
Glasgow Mayor Harold Armstrong, who did not seek re-election and is not returning to his post in 2023, was about to have to leave for another meeting and said he appreciated what the board, Carpenter and her team have done.
“We’re on the right track and y’all are doing a great job,” he said.
Soon after that, the board went into closed session for approximately 15 minutes for deliberations related to property.
Upon resuming open session, the group approved a recommendation from the Finance Committee to renew a $640,000 CD for 12 months at 1.65 percent.
Carpenter said they advertised for bids for the preliminary design of “potential spec buildings” of 75,000 square feet, expandable, for Lot 1 and 100,000 square feet, expandable, for Lot 7 in South Cooper, and they received two.
Precision Engineering in Tompkinsville bid $15,280, she said, and she named some other projects with which they’d been involved.
Scott, Murphy & Daniel’s proposal was for a “no-charge” bid but with the condition that if either of the projects or similar projects are built on those lots by a company other than that one, then the design work would be invoiced at $26,290 for the design fees per building.
After brief discussion, the decision was unanimous to award the bid to Precision Engineering.
The next regular meeting for the authority is at 8:15 a.m. Jan. 13 in the BCEA conference room.
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