Ville Platte City audit reveals $4 million budget deficit

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On Monday, the City of Ville Platte’s audit for the year ending June 30, 2017 was released with several findings including one concerning expenditures that exceeded the budgeted expenditures by five percent or more for the second year in a row.
According to the audit performed by Kolder, Slaven and Company, LLC, the city’s total revenues amounted to $3,007,908, while its expenditures totaled $7,338,021. The total deficiency of revenues over expenditures was reported as $4,330,113.
Expenditures for the year ending June 30, 2017 were $1,750,764 more than the expenditures for the previous fiscal year.
In the city’s original budget for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2017, it shows that the city at first anticipated bringing in $5,414,652 in revenues and projected to spend $8,504,670.
The $2.4 million less in revenues taken in were due to the fact that the city originally budgeted to receive $3,123,381 in intergovernmental revenues. However, the actual intergovernmental revenues received totaled $700,995.
These funds come from the State and Federal governments from things such as the beer tax, State and Federal grants, Evangeline Council on Aging, fire insurance rebates, highway maintenance, fire salary reimbursements, on-behalf payments and the summer feeding program.
The largest source of revenue for the city was from ad valorem taxes, the street and drainage maintenance tax, police and fire tax, PILOT - Housing Authority tax, Franchise - utility companies tax, Utility Fund - payment in lieu of taxes, and chain store taxes. In total taxes the city brought in $1,496,767.
In terms of expenditures, the most money was spent for police, which was $2,658,609. This amount was $641,319 more than what the city spent for police during the previous year.
The audit revealed that spending was also increased from the previous year in several other major areas, including: streets and drainage, where $866,070 was spent compared to $740,642, and culture and recreation, where $480,082 was spent compared to $444,516 last fiscal year.
Other financing sources that are recorded in the audit show that the city transferred $3,616,227 into the general fund account. However, after transferring $218,285 out of the general fund, the city was left with a total of $3,397,942 from other financing sources.
According to the audit, the fund balance at the beginning of the fiscal year was $3,225,066, while its fund ending balance on June 30, 2017 was $3,102,895.
Other findings reported in the audit include the city’s failure to publish a notification of the public hearing for the 2017 budget in the official journal, failure to have the utility department supervisor reconcile the utility aged receivable report to the general ledger accounts receivable balance, failure to have a detailed listing of customer meter deposits reconciled to the customer meter deposit liability general ledger accounts on a monthly basis, and for the police department ticket log not being maintained properly for all tickets.
The audit for the year ending June 30, 2017 is expected to be discussed by the mayor, Jennifer Vidrine, and the council, comprised of C.J. Dardeau, Jerry Joseph, Mike Perron, Freddie Jack, Donald Sam, and Bryant Riggs, at the upcoming Ville Platte City Council meeting on Monday, February 12, 2018, at 5:00 p.m.
To view the audit in its entirety, visit the Louisiana Legislative Auditor’s website at https://www.lla.la.gov/.