**PRESS RELEASE **
Re: Blount County Government Annual Financial Report
Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 2020
BLOUNT COUNTY, TN
Blount County Mayor Ed Mitchell announces the release of Blount County’s Annual Financial Report from the Tennessee Comptroller’s Office for the year ending June 30, 2020, with a clean audit report, with one finding.
The full report can be viewed at https://www.blounttn.org/958/Audits.
Our audit resulted in one finding and recommendation, which has been reviewed with the Comptroller’s Office and with Blount County management. From the Audit Report: “Some budget amendments were posted in the Other Capital Projects Fund that were not approved by the county commission.” Simply put, because 3 cents of property tax had been allocated to the Capital Project Fund FY18-19, any remaining balances left in that fund should have been voted on by the County Commission during the adoption process of the FY 19-20 budget to be formally reallocated.
Finance Director Randy Vineyard and his team immediately took action and the County Commission voted in February on the necessary budget amendments. The corrective action that we took included listing every project in the capital project fund. We corrected the beginning balance and ending balance for FY18-19 and FY 19-20, which ending balance became the beginning balance for this year (FY20-21), we took all those balances to the Budget Committee and County Commission for approval to correct the finding. We are current for this current year and we will not make this error again moving forward.”
This corrective action satisfies the Comptroller’s Office.
Each of our Elected Officials and their respective departments work every day to do the right thing in how we do business for our citizens. We all work diligently to provide our citizens with the best possible services and we take very seriously the fiscal responsibility we all have to our citizens. I am so proud of the work done by our Finance Director, Randy Vineyard, and his accounting team. We’ve enjoyed five previous years with no findings, which is still an incredible accomplishment that we will continue to be proud of and I hope our citizens are the same.
I want to thank our Elected Officials, our Department Heads for their continued diligence and dedication. I am thankful for the leadership provided by our Budget Committee, Audit Committee and County Commission. We all share a love and commitment to Blount County and its citizens. It is our daily mission to work together for the betterment of Blount County, and that starts with our daily financial practices. Everything we do is with our citizens in mind.”
We want our citizens to have confidence in Blount County’s financial health, and I can say with confidence that it’s never been better and more transparent.
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