Carl Widmer with Drescher and Malecki presents the 2024 audit findings to the city council. Screenshot courtesy of the city of Jamestown’s website

The city of Jamestown has spent more than it received in both the 2023 and 2024 fiscal years – with the city coming up further short in 2024 than originally anticipated.

While not a surprise to City Council members, the numbers included in the audit presented during Monday’s council work session Carl Widmer of Drescher and Malecki said the 2023 audit showed the city’s spending was exceeding the money coming in, a trend that has continued for 2024. The 2024 audit showed a decrease in both revenues and expenditures because the city went through more ARPA money in 2023 than 2024.

The net change difference between spending and revenues for 2024 was $944,000. The 2024 budget that the city adopted anticipated that number being $589,000.

“So, 2024 once you got through it, the actuals turned out to cost $300,000 to $400,000 more than what the city anticipated when it adopted its 2024 budget,” Widmer said.

Widmer also noted through graphs that over the last five years, the first three saw an increase in the general fund balance and the last two saw decreases. Widmer said this is a “cautionary tale” that the city has been seeing, especially moving forward into 2026 with the low budgeted fund balance, and is something the city will need to monitor throughout the year. The city’s unassigned fund balance sits at around 11% for the upcoming year, which Widmer said is usually recommended to be around 16%, or two months worth of funds. Widmer then wrapped up by addressing the financial challenges the city has been seeing and is continuing to see moving forward.

“You’re not alone; I would say these trends are commonplace, especially in New York State municipalities, and especially cities in New York state,” Widmer said. “Two years of consistent fund balance use and the fund balance use anticipated from fiscal year 2025 is going to balance out. So, looking at how much fund balance will remain at the end of 2025 is going to be a big concern and is something we will take a look at in next year’s audit.”

Widmer added that for some key financial cycles there is a lack of segregation of duties, meaning one person is doing many things, and the best practice would be having an independent individual review and approve them. Widmer highlighted one item that was removed from the 2024 audit after the 2023 one was audit preparedness, saying that the city understood the timing of the 2024 audit being in October and November due to the delay in the 2023 audit. That delay was due to audit preparedness, and Widmer said this year the records were available when they said they would be, which will result in an improvement on the start time for the 2025 audit. Widmer also praised the city’s full cooperation with the audit process.

Widmer told council members in March when presenting the 2023 audit findings that the auditors’ goal is to bring the timeline forward for each fiscal year presentation. That happened this year, with the 2024 audit received four months prior to the 2023 audit’s receipt.

Widmer began by noting the timeline move up, saying that he hopes the 2025 presentation will be able to be moved up a few months earlier than normal as well. Widmer started his presentation with the city’s deliverables, specifically the financial statements, something he said is what people most associate with the annual audit. All information in that document belongs to the city from that year.

Besides the financial statement, deliverables also include a single audit, or a special compliance audit, which Widmer said the city is subject to because of getting a lot of grant money from the state. This year’s total federal awards that were subject for testing were just under $8 million.

“That’s down a few million from last year but both of those years, 2023 and 2024, are certainly higher than normal for the city due to the ARPA recovery stimulus money that was handed out,” Widmer said.

Widmer added that because of the amount, the firm had to do audits on three different programs for the city rather than the usual one. There is a New York State Department of Transportation audit as well, because of receiving a significant amount from the DOT.