The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
“The audit went really smoothly”
[ By Kendra Walker ]
The Mt. Crested Butte town council accepted the 2021 audit for the town of Mt. Crested Butte last month. The town received a clean audit, the highest level of assurance provided on financial statements.
The town worked with McMahan and Associates for the second year in a row, and Michael Jenkins presented an audit summary to the council.
“Big picture, the town’s financial health is quite good at the end of 2021, especially compared to 2020,” he said, noting that the audit went very smoothly and that staff was very helpful and organized in preparation for and during the audit.
At the end of 2021, the town had a total of $32 million, up $2.8 million or 9% from the previous year. Sales and use taxes were up 4% from 2020.
“There was an increase in fund balances both due to the tourism economy bouncing back and increases in sales and use tax,” said Jenkins. “The town had much lower capital expenditures and town did a good job in controlling costs, certainly in light of inflation we’ve seen recently. That’s a reflection of good management and oversight in fiscal matters. …The townspeople of Mt. Crested Butte should take great comfort in that their financial resources are in great hands.”
He also encouraged the council to continue its oversight of financial matters, to look at financial reports and to weigh in on them. “This helps to ensure the town is able to continue to very effectively use staff to do the jobs they can do and do as well as they do.”
Mayor Nicholas Kempin noted the recent Gunnison County cyber scam event. “Is there anything we can do better to avoid such things?” he asked.
“The big thing is being alert. There’s such a volume of activity conducted online these days,” said Jenkins. “Slow down to make sure we follow our processes. The town has good internal control systems, they work. Trust and verify.”
Town clerk Tiffany O’Connell noted that she’s working on putting together a cyber security training for all staff.
