The county lawmakers have received their 2017 report card from the accounting firm of Bridgers, Goodman & Aldridge, PLLC, the county’s external auditing firm.
During Monday’s meeting of the Sunflower County Board of Supervisors, Karl Goodman presented the county’s 2017-audit report and pronounced to the county fathers “Everybody has done a really good job of keeping your financials and keeping the county records appropriate.”
He mentioned and explained the net position of the county assets and the negative appearance created by the pension liability computation that is required by the Governmental Accounting Standards Board.
Attorney Johnny McWilliams assured the supervisors that the deficit was a state liability and the county is in no way responsible, but simply required by the GASB to include it in their calculations. He inferred that the only way the county could be negatively impacted by this was if it needed to go into the market for a multi-million dollar bond.
With regard to the pension funds in general, Goodman said there are a great deal of liabilities floating about. He surmised that if the state were to stop the pension fund today it could only pay out around 61 cents on the dollar. He added that there are other states whose percentages are lower than Mississippi’s.
Goodman said any entity paying into PERS, the state retirement program, has to show a portion of the liability, which is a large number and makes it appear as though the entity is in a negative net situation. However once those figures are added back it would reflect a positive $3,904,000 on the county’s books.
Overall Goodman said, “At this point in time we’re in a good stable position.”
He emphasized that the county doesn’t have a lot of long-term debt. “Your legal debt margin at this point in time is .75 percent allowable.”
He said the county could conceivably go as high as 15 percent allowable. He reminded them that the figures are a year old so the report was just to let everyone know the county’s standings.
In other business,
The lawmakers also heard a construction update from engineer Ron Cassada and discussed several ongoing roads and bridges projects and minor road repairs with the road managers.
They voted to rescind a previous order to allow Delta Sigma Sorority to conduct a political forum on October 27 because the circuit clerk informed them that the courthouse will be used as a polling place on that date and the meeting could not be held in that close proximity.
The sheriff presented his monthly report for September, which was received and accepted. He outlined only $1,343.69 in collections because the cities were late in sending in their housing payments.
“So, it will probably be an enormous amount next month,” he said. Haywood also reported 3,995 meals prepared and served to inmates for September and noted that it was because of the increased number of people coming into the jail.
