SALISBURY — The Rowan County Board of Commissioners was given a 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 audit.

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, such as Rowan showing stability in property tax valuation and collection percentage.

One issue did arise with the county’s water fund that required the county to pen a response to the N.C. Local Government Commission.

Rowan County Chairman Greg Edds addressed the issue with the water fund, saying that the county was required to supply water to a group of homes on Long Ferry Road because their water quality had deteriorated.

“Since they were Rowan County citizens, the county opted to run water from I-85, that was already there from SRU (Salisbury-Rowan Utilities), down Long Ferry Road to those folks. So since it’s a small servicing area, its frankly hard to meet expenses with the small number of folks but we’ll continue to work on that,” said Edds.

Edds also said that the issue arises partly from the need to flush the water periodically because of the long water line not servicing enough people. He said that future economic development that occurs on Long Ferry Road will allow more properties to hook into the system and use the water, reducing the need to flush the water.

Thompson said the county actually showed growth in most of the economic indicators that the state looked at. One of the main indicators that she pointed to was the percentage of fund balance, or liquid assets available to the county, relative to the net expenditures. In 2021 the county had a ratio of 36.8 percent and in 2022 the ratio was 42.4 percent. In 2023 that number jumped to 68.2 percent, which Thompson said was over double the median for counties of similar size to Rowan. Thompson did note that the number was currently inflated by American Rescue Plan Act funding and other loan proceeds but that even when the number goes down, Rowan County will still be well above the median.

“There were no material weaknesses in your financial reporting,” Thompson said when Edds asked her if there were any red flags that the county should be concerned about.