Johnson City receives clean FY2025 audit; one inventory reporting finding noted

Auditors from Blackburn, Childers & Stegall presented the city’s fiscal year 2025 audit to the Board of Commissioners on Feb. 5 and reported a clean (unmodified) opinion on both the financial statements and the schedule of expenditures of federal awards. Tara Finner, audit partner, said the city ended the year with a net position of $488,000,000, about $411,000,000 of which is invested in capital assets. The audit noted that the city paid down approximately $18,900,000 in debt during the year and expended over $18,000,000 in federal grant funds.

Finner identified one audit finding related to water and sewer inventory variances tied to a software conversion: the system was averaging historical purchase costs rather than calculating inventory at current cost, producing a reporting variance. She said inventory counts were performed and there were no material inventory losses, and auditors expect the software calculation to be corrected so the general ledger and supporting reports will reconcile in future periods.

After the presentation a motion was made and seconded to accept the audit as presented; the board voted unanimously to accept the audit. Commissioners publicly thanked the finance department and other city staff for their work during a difficult software transition and for securing federal grant funding.