NJUS is behind on yearly audits
The City of Nome’s fiscal year 2022-2023 audit was presented to and approved by the Nome Common Council last Thursday in a special meeting.
The audit went well, according to auditor Donald Hanni of Altman, Rodgers Company, the Certified Public Accountant Firm used by the city and Nome Public Schools.
Hanni joined the meeting virtually to present the audit to the council.
Nome Joint Utility Systems and Nome Public Schools, being entities of the city, are also required to be audited yearly. Those documents are included in the city’s full audit, with the firm providing an opinion on their audits as well. NJUS hasn’t provided an audit since 2020, leaving the firm to issue a disclaimer opinion about the entity.
“I’d have to understand what the reasonings are behind it but usually if you’re not meeting your deadlines there’s some sort of issue involved,” Hanni said in response to the council’s concerns that the lack of audits was troubling.
Council Member Scot Henderson questioned if it was unusual for a city entity to use a different CPA firm and if that might make a difference in getting the audit on time. Hanni clarified, though it’s not common to use separate firms using one wouldn’t necessarily prevent the audit from being late.
Manager of NJUS John Handeland said in the meeting there was a delay where NJUS was unable to find a qualified person to hire and manage their audits. “My focus has been on making sure we pay our people, pay our bills,” he said.
Handeland submitted unaudited numbers to Hanni to be included in the financial statement. “John gave me what he thought were fairly close to final numbers for NJUS just so I could put something in your guys’ financial statements. Otherwise, if we left NJUS completely off it would be an adverse opinion,” Hanni said.
NJUS is currently finalizing their 2020-2021 audit.
The rest of the audit presentation continued with Hanni saying the city is in compliance and it was a “good, clean audit.”
The council voted to approve the 2022-2023 audit.