During a time when many municipalities are scrambling to balance budgets, Ball Ground was lauded for its financials during the presentment of the city’s annual audit last month.
Mauldin & Jenkins LLC representative James Bence said the city returned an “unqualified opinion” or “clean opinion,” which states all financial statements were correct during the financial period ending June 30, 2011.
The city also received a clean opinion during the budget year ending June 30, 2010.
According to Bence, Ball Ground did not receive any findings this year, as the city took appropriate steps in house to eliminate and prevent any findings from occurring. Bence called the outcome “impressive” for this day in age.
“To have no findings speaks highly on your management team,” Bence said.
Mayor Rick Roberts agreed, applauding Finance Director Donna England and City Manager Eric Wilmarth.
“There are very few times where there are no findings; I am very pleased,” he said. “We might be a very small municipality, but we want to excel in what we do.”
Bence also touted the city for its comprehensive accounting
report.
“The city prepares the highest level of reporting that local government can do,” he said. “This is not something many governments do throughout the state, this is something very few of them do and even fewer of governments of your size.”
Bence also commended the city’s management for working hand-in-hand with the auditors.
In addition to returning no findings, Bence said the city’s government activities stayed consistent with the previous year at $5.3 million net assets. “One thing that we like to point out is that while the city has $5.3 million in net assets, about $4.7 million of that is tied into roads, sidewalks and infrastructure,” he said. “A majority of your assets are infrastructures that are used by the citizens.”
Ball Ground to sell Flatbottom Road line
Considered a “liability” to the city, the council approved, at the Jan. 12 meeting, to sell a 2-mile-long, 8-inch waterline off Flatbottom Road to Cherokee County Water and Sewerage Authority for $50,000.
The city paid $175,000 as a joint venture with the developer of an unfinished subdivision off Flatbottom Road to have the line installed in 2007. The total cost was roughly $300,000.
“If you remember back when we did this, it was in our service area, but (CCWSA) already had a line there; its line, however, wasn’t serving the subdivision. CCWSA could either upgrade its line or we could put one in,” Wilmarth reminded council.
According to Wilmarth, three homes are connected to the line in the unfinished subdivision, but only one residence is occupied. The residents consume roughly 4,000 gallons of water a month.
“Part of the problem is the storage in the line,” he said, adding the line can hold about six months worth of water. “We flush
regularly on that line and pour water on the ground to make sure we don’t have a problem with water quality.”
Public works officials for the city said an 8-inch main with as much pressure as this one has could cost the city $10,000 to $15,000, if a leak goes undetected.
Wilmarth said Flatbottom Road, which is located in a rural area in northern Cherokee, does not connect to the city’s system. “This is strictly a buy/sell from CCWSA,” he said. “We don’t have a line in that area that we can feed it from our well.”
According to Wilmarth, the CCWSA has a new policy on how to deal with wholesale water, which now requires the buyer to
purchase capacity in the plant.
Wilmarth said capacity in the plant is bought in blocks of 100,000 gallons capacity with a cost of $2 per gallon. “At that point, they will sell you 100,000 gallons of
water a day, at a wholesale rate,” he said. “If you do not purchase capacity, then you purchase water at the retail rate. So, it’s the difference of paying $2.25 per 1,000 gallons and $4.50 per 1,000 gallons.”
When mulling whether or not to sell the waterline last week, Wilmarth told council that a benefit for CCWSA was that it could serve more residents on the line, as the agency already has lines running through that area.
“The other advantage to them, of course, is that they are picking up customers,” he said. “It just makes more sense, in my opinion, to have that limit our liability.”
With the purchase, the city would not be giving up the service area; however, Wilmarth said the it should consider abandoning this and more service areas where CCWSA has water mains in place.
FOR WEB
In other Ball Ground business, the council:
• set the annual budget retreat for Feb. 4 at Northside Hospital Cherokee Conference Center at the Bluffs, located at 1130 Bluffs Pkwy in Canton.
• approved, 4-0, with Councilman Mickey O’Malley absent to appoint Frank Homiller as the mayor pro-tem. The council also agreed to keep each member in their current committee chair positions and approved keeping department heads the same for 2012, which includes Wilmarth as director of public works; Karen Jordan as city clerk; Dana Davis as police chief; attorney Darrell Caudill from the firm Roach, Caudill & Gun; judge as David Cannon Sr. of David L. Cannon P.C.
• approved, 4-0, reaffirming the mayor, city clerk and city manager as authorized signers for all banking and checking accounts;
• approved, 4-0, establishing city council qualifying fees at $35 for a council seat and $108 for mayor;
• approved, 4-0, recertifying Ball Ground as a city of ethics, but tabled the adoption of an ordinance updating the city’s ethics code at the request of the mayor in order to allow time for the city attorney to review the document;
• approved, 4-0, an amendment to the Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax budget. Wilmarth said the city was a little more than $14,000 above revenue projections. “Mid-year we would like to ask for a reallocation of those funds that come in above budgeted amount,” he said, noting $4,500 would go toward old City Hall improvements, $7,000 would be put toward roadways repairs and $1,500 to park improvements and maintenance. The remaining monies would be put in the contingency line;
• considered a resolution authorizing the use of city computers to assist local businesses with becoming E-Verified, as required by law; and
• approved, 4-0, a resolution to submit to local legislation requesting that citations issued through Georgia State Patrol in Ball Ground be heard in the city’s court.
