Independent financial audit affirms surplus in Woonsocket budget for fiscal year 2020
WOONSOCKET — The firm of Hague, Sahady & Co., P.C., delivered an independent financial statement audit for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2020 confirming that both the city of Woonsocket and the Woonsocket Education Department (WED) ended the fiscal year with budgetary surpluses that totaled $479,417 for the city and $2,562,362 for the WED, according to Mayor Lisa-Baldelli Hunt in ea statement released Friday. d “The pandemic made fisocal year 2020 challenging dto manage from a financial 0viewpoint and I am pleased sthat we were able to over0come numerous obstacles tand still generate another City -budgetary surplus,” Baldelli-Hunt said. “We were able to withstand the daily challenges imposed upon us by the pandemic in part due to the measures we instituted in previous years to strengthen our financial and operational structures and to enhance our budgetary controls so that we could better deal with unexpected circumstances. These measures included lowering our debt structure by over $60 million since 2013 which decreased our fixed costs and reducing property taxes and improving city services which paved the way for new residential and commercial development.”
Baldelli-Hunt lauded the efforts of City Finance Director Christine Chamberland and WED Finance Director Brad Peryea in managing their respective financial operations throughout the pandemic and completing a successful audit.
“This was not a standard year for our Finance Departments in any respect,” Baldelli-Hunt said. “State, federal, and local revenues were uncertain for most of the year, expenditures were often driven by situational responses to the pandemic, federal and state paperwork increased exponentially, and we had to work through pandemic related absences in our workforce. All these factors made generating financial information challenging throughout the fiscal year and performing the audit more time consuming. I commend the Finance Departments for their hard work and dedication during this demanding period.”