Editors Note: This article was originally published in the July 19, 2023 issue of the Chronicle Progress. Some information may be outdated.
Millard County’s finances—and more, it’s financial practices—received a clean bill of health last week by the local government’s outside auditor.
During a presentation by Jon Haderlie, a certified public accountant and partner at Larson & Company, officials were told this year’s audits were unqualified, which is a good thing in public accounting.
“There’s not glaring issues that you need to correct. So, we’ll typically find things throughout the year that you can work on to get better,” he told commissioners during his presentation.
Haderlie said he audited both the county’s financial statements as well as federal pandemic funding the county received in 2022.
He said because the federal funds amounted to more than $750,000—the county received two tranches of federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds amounting to $1.3 million each in 2021 and 2022—it required a separate, single audit. The auditor tested the county’s compliance with rules related to spending those funds.
Haderlie said his role is akin to “professional skeptic” when it comes to auditing entities.
“Our job is to come in and trust but verify. Our job as auditors is to really be skeptical of things that are being done. And making sure it’s being done the right way,” he said.
Such annual audits generally follow guidelines and standards set by
Since Millard County has a long history of clean audits, Haderlie said he looks for small changes officials can make to stay ahead of compliance issues he sees coming over the horizon at the state level.
For example, he urged the county to begin putting in place an inventorying system to better account for its assets at any given moment, from supplies bought by the road department to the county’s roads themselves.
He used the road department as an example since its inventory is “material” to the road fund itself, making up some $800,000 on the fund’s balance sheet.
“The whole point of recording inventory is you’re really matching that asset to when it’s spent,” he said.
Commission Chair Bill Wright sort of pushed back on the auditor’s quasi finding that the county needs to better inventory departmental assets. He was concerned that department heads have so much to do already, taking inventory and tracking it could become almost too tedious an exercise to ask supervisors to perform themselves.
At one point, incredulous at the recommendation, he asked if the auditor meant only the large items, such as vehicles and computers, or if he indeed meant even the tiniest of purchases. Haderlie simply responded, “everything.”
“As far as the counting goes, you’re right, it can kind of become a nightmare,” he agreed with Wright.
The commissioner later explained that in a small county department heads such as the sheriff and road manager are hands-on employees, “actually out there with grease on their hands.” Adding another duty to their job descriptions involving filling spreadsheets and tracking inventory may be a bridge too far.
Haderlie said he’s just trying to steer the county in a direction he knows the state auditor is heading toward.
Later, he brought up one of his audit report’s official findings, which is that the county needs to conduct an inventory of all of its roadways—considered assets on the county’s books. The auditor recommended the county keep track of its roads and update its master list regularly, detailing the condition of each, noting when roads are repaired and when they fall into disrepair.
Haderlie said currently the county uses a modified approach in tracking the conditions of roadways, giving a percentage each year of roads that are in good shape and a percentage that need work. This includes bridges inside the county. The auditor said that data cannot just be in someone’s head. It needs to be recorded somewhere.
“That’s got to be somewhere in a system. Because if something happens to the road manager…” then the information could easily be lost, he said.
“Really, at the end of the day, the county is doing a great job,” he added. “Like I said, this is one of our cleanest audits. We’re trying to find ways to help you guys just constantly improve, get better every year. You know, little things that you can work on. The county is in a good position.”
Later, a discussion among commissioners and officials surrounded the awarding of a Utah Department of Transportation planning assistance grant, which will fund a near year-long transportation study that will include an in-depth look at traffic counts, road conditions, road classifications, mapping and future needs involving the county’s thoroughfares.
County Planner Adam Richins said the county envisions an initial $80,000 project.
A UDOT grant recently awarded the county from the agency’s Region 4 will cover $72,000 and the county is matching the remaining $8,000.
The county entered into a professional services agreement with engineering firm Jones & DeMille Engineering to create the master plan and perform the work necessary, including a total road inventory.
“We’ll absolutely have an inventory coming out of all this,” Richins said.
Delta and Fillmore cities are expected to also participate on the periphery.
Delta City recently met with a Jones & DeMille engineer at a city council meeting as it was contemplating its own street master plan—city officials were going to basically do their own planning and then realized not only were there state grant opportunities but that the work was more complex and required engineering to perfect it in the end.
The city was set to consider hiring Jones & DeMille for a proposed traffic count project within the city at its July 19 meeting.
Fillmore City is expected to jump on board within the next year with its own planning effort as well.
Richins said he expects the project will be finished on the county side sometime next spring.
