City gets clean report in audit review

The City of Kennedale has received a thumbs-up from an annual independent audit of the books. {{more: Read more …}}

 

The Comprehensive Annual Financial Report for the budget year ending September 30, 2016 was presented to the city council member at the February regular council meeting. Read the details at Full

Audit Report

 

information from the City of Kennedale …

The following information was from a letter presented to the Mayor and City Council by the then City Manager Bob Hart and Finance Director Krystal Crump.

• The City continues to budget cautiously in regards to anticipated revenues due to the economy.

• The City was able to budget its revenue within a small variance and maintain responsibility in its expenditures resulting in an increase in fund balance in the General Fund.

• The City did receive a bond rating upgrade from Standard & Poor?s to ?AA-? from ?A+? following closing of the fiscal year.

• The Government Finance Officers Association of the United States and Canada (GFOA) awarded a Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting to the City of Kennedale for its CAFR for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2015. This was the twelfth consecutive year.

• Financial data and other pertinent documents have been added to the website. The city is working towards getting a star for transparency from the Texas State Comptroller?s Office.

• Council, Board, and staff activities are guided by the

  City?s strategic plan ? Imagine Kennedale 2015 ? and the recently adopted

  Comprehensive Land Use Plan. These plans call for the creation of residential

  areas on the southwest portion of Kennedale.

• The City and the Kennedale Economic Development Corporation (KEDC) are working together on the redevelopment of the Oak Crest area. This development will improve north entry to the community and will be complimentary of the planned development of Village Creek Park.

• Phase I of the Kennedale TownCenter is complete. Phase II is underway with one ?spec? building and a new building to house Chicken Express and a new Dickey?s Barbeque.

• The city is working with developers for the establishment of four subdivisions. These include The Vineyard (117 homes), Hilltop (34 homes), Glenn at Village Creek (35 homes) and Falcon Crest (8 homes).

• Restoration of Village Creek as a park and water quality

  feature will consume staff time and resources for many years to come. Village Creek

  will require the assistance of the City of Arlington, the Corps of Engineers,

  the Trinity River Authority (TRA), the Tarrant Regional Water District, the

  University of Texas at Arlington (UTA), the Environmental Protection Agency

  (EPA), the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), and the Texas

  Water Development Board (TWDB).

from the auditor’s report …

• We believe that the audit evidence we have obtained is

  sufficient and appropriate to provide a basis for our audit opinions.

• In our opinion, the combining and individual non-major fund

  financial statements and schedules are fairly stated in all material respects

  in relation to the basic financial statements as a whole.

• We believe that the City?s internal controls adequately safeguard assets and provide reasonable assurance of proper recording of financial transactions.

• At the end of the current fiscal year, the City reported a positive balance in all three categories of net position, both for the government as a whole, as well as for its separate governmental and business-type activities

• The accounting and reporting policies of the City conform to accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America for local governments. ? during our audit we did not identify any deficiencies in internal control that we consider to be material weaknesses. However, material weaknesses may exist that have not been identified.

• As part of obtaining reasonable assurance about whether City of Kennedale, Texas? financial statements are free from material misstatement, we performed tests of its compliance with certain provisions of laws, regulations, contracts, and grant agreements, noncompliance with which could have a direct and material effect on the determination of financial statement amounts. The results of our tests disclosed no instances of on compliance or other matters that are required to be reported under Government Auditing Standards.

• The purpose of this report is solely to describe the scope of our testing of internal control and compliance and the results of that testing, and not to provide an opinion on the effectiveness of the entity?s internal control or on compliance.

Full

Audit Report