Accountant praises Roosevelt commissioners' efficiency

PORTALES — Roosevelt County commissioners work fast.

That’s what accountant Ray Roberts told them at their Tuesday morning commission meeting.

“I’ve been doing this for 30 years; I have never had anybody clean up 11 audit findings in one year, and that’s just a tremendous accomplishment,” Roberts told commissioners as he praised County Manager Amber Hamilton and other officials.

During her report to commissioners, Hamilton said their packet included a quarterly report on county finances.

“Our county’s financial performance remains on task,” Hamilton said. “When we look at the budget, our revenues are over budget and our expenses are under budget, so overall, our exposure to the continued monitoring of the DFA (Department of Finance) has subsided now. We’ve been released formally from all of their oversight.”

The county asked the New Mexico Department of Finance for assistance after discovering a $1.3 million deficit in the beginning of 2015, only a few months after Hamilton was hired as county manager.

“At this point, we are able to stand on our own,” Hamilton continued. “As of the end of December, we were looking at 66 percent of our revenues collected, and we were at 40 percent expenditures, so we’re well on task with where we’re at.”

Roberts, who works with RPC CPAs and Consultants, which conducted the county’s last financial audit, said his company only produced two reports in the county’s audit.

One report is called an “unmodified report,” and “that means you’re following all the rules. It’s the best report you can get.”

The other report is called the “yellow book report” and references government laws and regulations.

“We don’t give an opinion on that. We just say nothing came to our attention that causes harm,” he said. “That’s the only two reports that you got, and those are the best reports that you can get.”

Roberts told commissioners that during the past fiscal year, their assets increased by more than $2 million, mostly due to capital projects, and their liabilities increased by $1.1 million, but “that’s not your fault ’cause it’s that pension requirement that the state requires and, each year, it’s probably going to continue to go up.”

He added that the county’s revenue increased by $1.16 million, and expenses decreased by $600,000.

“No matter how you look at that, that’s good. It just shows good management on the county’s part,” he said.

Roberts said 11 findings were resolved from the previous year, but “some of these you were just physically unable to get them (all) done in a short period of time, because it just takes a while to go through a cycle and get some of these changes run through.”

Roberts said an area that still needs improvement is the county’s internal controls — all the little checks and balances — “but we don’t anticipate that being a problem much longer.”

He also said there was documentation issues in the area of travel and per diem that totaled $38.94.

The only repeat finding was issues with turning Public Employees Retirement Association reports in on time: “The policy was set; there was just a little delay in implementing it that caused a couple more to be late this year,” he said.

And the only new finding was in accounts receivables (money owed to the county) — when the list of these accounts was put together, a few items were missed, he said.

In essence, county finances look “really, really strong,” Hamilton said.