Ellington Town Audit: Things Look Good

There’s always room for improvement, but overall the town’s financial operation is healthy, according to a recent audit report.

Earlier this week Rob Howard with CCR of Glastonbury gave the finance board an overview of the audit report for 2009-10, which the firm submitted town officials in December.

The annual audit reviews everything from the town’s cash flow and grants, its accounts and the controls in place to manage and oversee the town’s financials statements.

Based on the review of all these items, CCR staff concluded that Ellington is in good shape when it comes to its finances and its financial controls. In audit terms, the town’s financial statements “presented fairly.”

Finance Officer Nicholas J. DiCorleto, Jr., said Friday that he is pleased with results, particularly because the audit highlights the health of the town’s undesignated reserve fund balance.

At Tuesday’s finance board meeting, Howard told members that CCR has given the town an unqualified clean opinion, which just means that there were no questions about any of the audits. 

Howard said that all town assets and liabilities were included and totaled $65.8 million. He also spoke about the town’s undesignated fund balance – it’s healthy – and ran through general budget numbers from the 2009-10 fiscal year and mentioned that the majority of town revenue is generated from taxes. 

Of two significant grants the town received, Howard said the auditors looked at federal IDA grants, as well as the state Education Cost Sharing (ECS) grant and that both complied with governing rules.  

Howard went through the process taken to review the town’s materials and regularly referred to a binder filled with documents, only stopping to take a question from board members.

Although minor, Howard did say that there was one snafu. Just one of the required two reports associated with the state Steep Grant was filed on time. CCR noted that the money from the grant was fully accounted for and that the report was eventually filed. 

Howard also offered recommendations on how to keep digital information safe before he wrapped up the audit presentation. Industry best practices were suggested, as well as doing a vulnerability assessment on the town computer systems. 

DiCorleto said Friday that the town has already enacted some of the suggestions, such as having a back-up server for all town financial documents located off site. This will protect the information should anything ever happen to the town hall, where most of the documents are kept.