By Betsy Finklea
The Dillon County Council received a clean, unmodified opinion on their 2023 audit report recently.
Auditor William Hancock of The Brittingham Group made the presentation. The auditor stated that a clean, unmodified opinion meant that it was correct in all material respects. He spoke about internal control and said there were no areas where the cost of a change of procedures would outweigh the benefits.
Like last year, the county was subject to additional level of procedures that had to be performed because they spent more than $750,000 sourced from federal funds. No instances of non-compliance were found.
Dillon County did not qualify as a low-risk auditee. He said this is not negative. This is simply because there was a finding from the previous year because the audit was not completed in 9 months from the end of the fiscal year. This year the audit was completed on time with no problem.
Hancock then talked about the statement of revenue. The budgeted amount for the year was $21 million in revenues, but they ended up with $24 million in revenues largely due to intergovernmental revenues and service revenues and charges.
The bottom line had an excess/surplus of $1.6 million on a $21 million budget. There was a total of a $2.99 million for the year but this included landfill costs, American Rescue Plan money, and insurance proceeds from damaged equipment.
Dillon County has only about $4.4 million in general obligation debt. They are paying 1.33 to 3.09 percent interest. They are set to be completely paid off in 2027.
Fee-in-lieu of taxes were discussed. At the end of this past fiscal year, Dillon County contracted with 15 separate entities which lowered property taxes paid by $5.1 million. This is done through economic development.
Court fines and fees were almost $1 million. The county got to keep about $617,000 of this amount.
