Utility accepts audit report
At the Lassen Municipal Utility District’s Board of Directors Wednesday, Dec. 14 meeting, the board accepted the draft annual audit report.
Thomas Unke of Baker Tilly, presented the report to the board.
Unke said the presentation is a way of wrapping up the effort conducted for the financial audit report.
“You have a great organization here,” said Unke. “You continue to make strides and improvements as an organization in how you run and financially.”
Unke said LMUD received a clean opinion, or unmodified opinion.
“That’s the opinion that you really want an auditor to provide you with,” said Unke, “It says that we believe, in our opinion, your financial statements are free from material misstatements.”
Unke said LMUD makes a lot of purchases, which is common for utilities as they purchase energy, instruct assets and more.
“It’s critical that you have cash on hand to manage your operation so there’s a lot of signifigance to the way you operate your utility to your business,” said Unke.
Unke said LMUD has strong financial health, meaning it has cash on hands, ability to pay debts, and more which lends to it being a strong utility.
Unke said during the audit, the auditors made one adjusting journal entry to the books.
Unke said auditors spend a lot of time assessing risk and seeing where things can go wrong.
“All in all I think you folks had a really good year,” said Unke.
Unke pointed out that there was an increase to rates in 2015, which had a full impact in 2016, that the power purchase cost was reduced and that maintenance was a little slower this year.
Unke said it’s a good year when your revenue goes up and your expenses go down. He said this resulted in an earnings increase by a few million dollars.
Unke said the utility has around six and a half months of reserves on hand.
“Overall the audit went well,” said Unke.
