By Robert Sullivan

SALISBURY — The Rowan County Board of Commissioners was given a mostly clean bill of health when it received the annual audit report on Tuesday. The audit was performed by the accounting firm Martin Starnes and Associates to fulfill the state requirement of a yearly financial report.

Tonya Thompson, an auditor with Martin Starnes, presented the report. Thompson said that the county generally showed positive performance in the indicators the state looks at, which included the growth of the available fund balance and a stable property tax valuation and collection percentage.

Thompson said that the county did have two indicators of concern, which require county officials to submit a letter laying out the plan to address the issue to the N.C. Local Government Commission, which oversees the auditing process. One was similar to the only red flag in the audit last year, which was that the county’s water system was running at a loss, while the other, an “immaterial budget violation,” was a new issue.

“It was about $10,000 in the fines and forfeitures fund, which is an unusual fund in that, in the past, it had been treated as an agency and so you didn’t have to budget it. A few years ago, the accounting changed for that fund, it was no longer considered an agency and now the county has to budget those expenditures, which are basically you receive funds and forfeitures and you pay them out. So, I think it’s just a matter of some additional monitoring, especially right at year-end, to make sure that any accruals that come in are not going to exceed (the budget),” said Thompson.

The water system issue was explained previously as being due to the small amount of area that the county’s water system covers, which is just in the northeast portion of the county along Long Ferry Road. Chairman Greg Edds said in 2024 that “it’s frankly hard to meet expenses with the small number of folks but we continue to work on that.”

Thompson also provided general information showing the financial situation in the county at the end of the past fiscal year. In 2024, the county’s revenues were at a total of $212,369,309, an increase of approximately $24.5 million over 2023, while the expenses ended at $183,914,533, an increase of approximately $16.5 million.

The county’s fund balance available increased approximately $24 million to a total of $133.8 million. That represents approximately 71 percent of the county’s net expenditures, meaning that if the county were to completely lose all revenue sources, it could operate for 8 and a half months. That number has ballooned from the 2022 percentage, which was 42.

When asked by Edds if the county’s finances were in good shape, Thompson said that they were in “pretty good shape.”