City passes audit with few problems

Many people take time during the holidays to look back at the prior year. Havre's city government is no exception.

The first item on Monday's City Council meeting agenda was the 61-page audit of the city government from July 2009 through June 2010.

The audit was done this autumn by the Hamilton Consulting Group.

The resulting report was presented by Hamilton's Gordon Thompson, and the news was mostly good.

"There were no significant audit findings," Thompson said. "Congratulations. Good job."

He went on to say that the audit had gone smoothly. There were no disagreements with city management. Hamilton believes that the financial records that they were given for the audit were fair and accurate, according to Thompson.

Aside from the situation appearing nominal, there was additional good and bad news.

Thompson said that although Havre's net assets grew over that year by $262,000, which is not much for a city of Havre's size, the governmental funds had increased.

"That's not something that happens often," Thompson said.

There were three areas that Thompson referred to as "troubling," to which he wanted to draw the council's attention.

The first was court fines being lower and having dropped over the past few years. He said he didn't know if this was the result of the new city judge doing things differently.

The second was a sharp drop in investment earnings for the city.

In 2007 Thompson said that the city earned $183,000. Last year it earned $8,000.

This drop is mostly because of national drops in interest rates and subsequently everyone's investment earnings.

The last "troubling" concern was the money coming in from the oil and gas production tax. Production of the two has gone down. So money for the city coming from them has gone down.

Aside from those three revenue drops, Thompson said the company felt that things were generally going well.

See A5 for more Council coverage

Many people take time during the holidays to look back at the prior year. Havre's city government is no exception.

The first item on Monday's City Council meeting agenda was the 61-page audit of the city government from July 2009 through June 2010.

The audit was done this autumn by the Hamilton Consulting Group.

The resulting report was presented by Hamilton's Gordon Thompson, and the news was mostly good.

"There were no significant audit findings," Thompson said. "Congratulations. Good job."

He went on to say that the audit had gone smoothly. There were no disagreements with city management. Hamilton believes that the financial records that they were given for the audit were fair and accurate, according to Thompson.

Aside from the situation appearing nominal, there was additional good and bad news.

Thompson said that although Havre's net assets grew over that year by $262,000, which is not much for a city of Havre's size, the governmental funds had increased.

"That's not something that happens often," Thompson said.

There were three areas that Thompson referred to as "troubling," to which he wanted to draw the council's attention.

The first was court fines being lower and having dropped over the past few years. He said he didn't know if this was the result of the new city judge doing things differently.

The second was a sharp drop in investment earnings for the city.

In 2007 Thompson said that the city earned $183,000. Last year it earned $8,000.

This drop is mostly because of national drops in interest rates and subsequently everyone's investment earnings.

The last "troubling" concern was the money coming in from the oil and gas production tax. Production of the two has gone down. So money for the city coming from them has gone down.

Aside from those three revenue drops, Thompson said the company felt that things were generally going well.

See A5 for more Council coverage