The accountant who led the audit of the City of Dickson’s finances for its most recent fiscal year reported the city continues to be financially “healthy” with a reduction in its debt and an increase in reserves.
Matt Wood of Alexander Thompson Arnold CPAs presented the audit for the 2020-21 fiscal year to the Dickson City Council at its March 7 meeting. Wood said the audit includes no internal control findings or management issues to report.
Despite the impact of COVID, the City of Dickson was able to add $2.4 million to its fund balance for a total of just over $20 million, exceeding the budget estimate of $19.3 million.
Wood said a “healthy” fund balance for a municipality would be 25 percent of its operating expenses. With the better-than-expected revenues seen in 2020-21, the City of Dickson’s fund balance grew from 74.61 percent to 74.69 percent of its operating expenses.
Wood said his company, which audits more municipalities than any company in Tennessee, frequently sees fund balances in the 5 percent range or even with negative balances by having to be used to cover expenditures.
Wood said the city saw collections of $1.56 million in state sales taxes to exceed budget projections of $1.16 million, while also receiving more than $750,000 in state and federal grants.
In addition to the revenue surplus, Wood said the city reduced its overall debt from $5.2 million to $4.8 million.
Dickson Mayor Don L. Weiss Jr. thanked City Administrator Rydell Wesson and the administration’s department heads for being good stewards of the taxpayers’ money, especially at a time when the impact of the COVID pandemic could not be predicted.
The city council voted unanimously to accept the audit report for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2021.
