Fiscal year 2024 audit released for the City of Jackson

JACKSON, Tenn. — The fiscal year 2024 audit for the City of Jackson shows financial statements made and recommendations for these statements.

The City of Jackson’s fiscal year 2024 audit was released and contains opportunities for strengthening internal controls and operating efficiency.

The first concern stated in the fiscal year 2024 audit is the City of Jackson spent more than the annual budget approved by the city council in several funds.

These funds included the general fund, solid waste fund, metro drug fund, police drug fund, and the community redevelopment fund.

The audit recommended that City of Jackson ensure that all spending is approved by the city council before it occurs and that any changes should be recorded in the general ledger to help monitor the remaining budgets throughout the year.

The audit says while testing wheel revenue receipts there was a delay between when cash was collected by departments and when it was deposited into the city’s bank accounts.

According to the review, 8 out of 17 deposits from July to December of 2023 were made later than a reasonable timeframe–one deposit was delayed 41 days.

The audit proposes that the city should deposit checks as quickly as possible to prevent large reconciliation issues.

According to the city’s policy, there is a minimum fund balance that must be kept equal to three months of expenses and transfers out.

This means that the minimum fund balance would be roughly $23.6 million. However, the fund had an unassigned balance estimated to $21.3 million, which is $2.2 million less than the policy.

With this, it is suggested for the city to observe and adjust spending plans for 2025 to restore the fund balance to the required 3 month level.

We have contacted members of the City of Jackson’s government to discuss the audit. However, the members were unavailable for a comment at this time.

The audit did not aim to give an opinion on how effective the internal controls are. The audit letter states that these suggestions have been discussed with the City of Jackson and can be discussed in further detail at the city’s convenience.

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