By MELINDA J. OVERSTREET
for Glasgow News 1
A “clean” audit report was presented Monday to the Glasgow Common Council regarding its financial accounting for the fiscal year that ended June 30.
Jeff Carter, a certified public accountant with the firm Taylor, Polson & Co., discussed the findings of the report with the full council at its regular 6 p.m. meeting after just having gone over them at a special-called meeting of the council Finance Committee that started 90 minutes prior.
“In our opinion, based on our audit and the report of the other auditors, the financial statements … present fairly, in all material respects, the respective financial position of the governmental activities, the aggregate discretely presented component units, each major fund, and the aggregate remaining fund information [for the city for that period] and the respective changes in financial position for the year then ended in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America,” the letter introducing the 124-page written report states.
The other auditors’ reports refers to those prepared by other firms for the Glasgow Water Co. and Glasgow Electric Plant Board, which are municipally owned utilities but are governed by separate boards.
Carter touched on a few highlights throughout the report, such as the increase of roughly $3.79 million in overall net position compared with the prior year for governmental-type activities.
Carter said the audit found no deficiencies, no material weaknesses and no compliance issues.
In other business, the council, with all members present, approved second readings of the three following ordinances and a municipal order adopting the latest supplement to the Code of Ordinances, the last of which was unanimous.
The first two ordinances were also approved unanimously. Respectively, they permanently close the existing portion of Ford Drive from West Main Street to West Water Street and then accept into the city’s street maintenance program what would be a newly built version of that segment of Ford Drive in that same block but roughly 175 feet to the west of where it is now – contingent on its meeting all the standards for city streets at the time it’s completed.
The third ordinance prompted a bit more discussion and few more questions than it did when its first reading was approved unanimously Feb. 26. With council members Max Marion, Marlin Witcher and Marna Kirkpatrick casting votes against it, the second reading still moved forward with six votes in the affirmative.
The ordinance increases the city’s insurance premium fee from 2 percent to 5 percent on health and life insurance policies, with certain exceptions. For life insurance, it only applies to the first year’s collected premiums.
The other types of insurance to which the fee applies were already at 5 percent, and both those rates had been set when the local law was first implemented in 1966 and they had not been adjusted since. Exceptions with the health insurance continued for “insuring employers against liability for personal injuries to their employees, or death caused thereby, under the provisions of the Worker’s Compensation Act” and policies of group health insurance provided for state employees or premiums paid to any self-funded health insurance program for state employees as laid out in state law.
Marion said that as a licensed insurance agent, he believed that increase would be passed along to consumers and it’s “just a slap in the face to small business owners.”
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