Westlock County ended the 2016 operating year with a $1.169 million surplus, narrowly avoiding red ink on its ledger due to $1.71 million in government transfers for capital.
That’s the main highlight of the municipality’s audited financial statements ending Dec. 31, 2016, which county council approved during their April 25 meeting.
“We’ve issued a clean audit opinion on the financial statements,” said Tina Viney of Viney, Shoemaker and Friesen Chartered Accountants. “We feel that these consolidated statements are presented fairly to accounting standards.”
The county took in $15.407 million in revenue throughout 2016, which was below the budgeted amount of $16.166 million.
Revenue projections were mostly correct with the exception of user fees and sales of goods, where they under-budgeted by over $600,000.
Expenses were much higher than expected at $15.95 million for 2016 — the county originally budgeted $13.978 million, due in large part to an unexpected airport-related expense of $1.651 million.
That would have left the county $543,149 in the red, but the municipality received $1.712 million in government transfers that put it back over the top.
Viney commended the county on its transparency, though she raised a concern over the increasing deficit in the transportation budget.
She told council that the transportation department had an operating deficit of $4.96 million, an increase of $1 million from 2015.
“That net deficit has to be funded from other areas,” noted Viney. “The bulk of the deficit is in the revenue, not in the expenses. The department had about $4.1 million in revenue in 2015, and this year it’s got $2.5 million.”
Westlock County CAO Leo Ludwig said the drop in transportation revenue was due to certain internal numbers being larger than in previous years.
These related to inter-deparmental charging — the expenses charged by various departments of the county to each other for work done on their behalf.
Viney also noted that the county was nearly halfway to its total $23.1 million allowable debt limit, currently sitting just shy of $11 million, including debt held for seniors housing and the Westlock Seed Cleaning co-op. However, she said that there was no reason for panic.
“It’s the cost of doing business,” she said. “A lot of debt was paid down as well. There was a decrease of about $320,000. Being at half the debt limit is certainly OK.”
The county paid $233,091 in salaries among the four separate chief administrative officers (CAO) it employed in 2016 and paid councillors $298,890 — over $41,000 each, including benefits and allowances.
Viney also noted that the county needed to top up its $9.6 million in reserves, which were about $1.6 million short of cash.
“They’re not all funded at this point,” she said. “To fund the reserves, you need to generate cash from future operations to be able to utilize the money in reserves.”
It should be noted that this was the first time in three years that Westlock County met the May 1 provincial deadline for submitting audited financial statements for the previous year.
Ludwig praised administration for getting the information to the auditors in a timely fashion.
“I would like take this opportunity to thank staff that worked with our auditor to get this information done on time this year,” he said.
“With the motions that have been approved today, we will meet the May 1 target for the first time in three years. So kudos to the staff.”
