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GATESVILLE – Although it was past the deadline, Gates County’s FY 2023-24 has been received and approved by the Local Government Commission (LGC).

The county’s Board of Commissioners were advised of that information at their regularly scheduled meeting on Wednesday of last week.

There, LeeAnn Bagaasala, a CPA with the auditing firm (Mauldin & Jenkins) under contract with the county, presented a brief report on Gates County’s financial health for the 12 month period ending June 30, 2024.

Material weaknesses were identified within the audit dealing with maintenance of general ledger accounts. Those issues resulted in several adjustments being made, three to the water fund and one each to the general fund and the lottery fund.

The audit of federal ARPA (American Rescue Plan Act) funding discovered that the county, in its efforts to use some of that money to purchase and install new water meters, did not originally follow the procurement standards by soliciting price quotes instead of the formal bidding process.

“This has been corrected by the county,” Bagasala noted in her report.

Bagasala added that while the LGC has approved the county’s audit, they did note it was submitted four months after the Nov. 30, 2024 deadline.

“You will need to respond to the LGC to inform them of your plans to submit the audit in a timely fashion going forward,” Bagasala said. “You will also need to address the material weaknesses found in the audit and how you will fix those going forward.

Other than those weaknesses, Bagasala gave the county an unmodified (clean) opinion of their financial accounting practices.