ENGLISHTOWN – No recommendations were made in the 2016 municipal audit of Englishtown.
At a Borough Council meeting on July 26, council members passed a resolution adopting the 2016 audit. Under state law, the governing body of every municipality must have an annual audit of its books, accounts and financial transactions.
By passing the resolution, the council certified to the state’s Local Finance Board that all members of the governing body reviewed, as a minimum, the sections of the annual audit entitled General Comments and Recommendations.
The audit was conducted by Holman Frenia Allison, P.C.
Anthony Mannino, a representative of the firm, reviewed the 2016 audit during the meeting and informed borough officials there were no recommendations being made because no issues were uncovered by the auditors.
Because no recommendations were made, officials were not required to prepare a corrective action plan.
“I am happy to announce we had a clean opinion,” Mannino told the governing body.
According to Mannino, borough officials were able to increase the municipality’s fund balance (surplus) by about $93,000.
For Englishtown’s 2016 municipal budget, which totaled $2.36 million, Mannino said borough officials used $258,000 from surplus to balance the budget, but were able to regenerate that amount through excess in revenue by $351,000.
In the borough’s utility funds, Mannino said $210,000 was used in the water utility fund and was regenerated by $230,000; and $224,600 was used in the sewer utility fund and was regenerated by $225,666.
“Overall, [a] pretty strong year,” he told the governing body. “A fund balance increase across the board (and) really no deficits we had to note. The fund balance increase helps you for 2017 in reviewing your budget because you have a little more leeway, a little more room.”
