East Hampton Village received an unmodified, or clean, opinion from its auditor, the annual audit demonstrating no material misstatements, significant deficiencies, or noncompliance, according to an official from the Satty & Partners accounting firm, who reported his findings to the village board on Friday.
Frank Sluter, managing partner with the firm, told the board that the audit of the village’s financial statements was “perfect,” as were its internal controls, which he described as checks and balances with respect to finances.
Total revenues in the previous fiscal year were $33 million, Mr. Sluter said, which exceeded the budgeted amount by almost $4 million. “What really brought most of it up was, almost $2 million had to do with license permits, mostly building permits,” which were $2 million above budgeted amounts. “So you had those extra dollars in to utilize for future items.”
Budgeted expenditures of $30 million came in under budget by $150,000, Mr. Sluter said. “That’s like four-tenths of a percent within your budget for expenditures, and as we all know, trying to budget your own personal items as opposed to a big village, that’s a tight budget, I must say. So great work on that.”
The village paid down almost $600,000 in debt, he said, leaving around $7.6 million in debt service, to be paid off over the next 12 years.
The village provides medical insurance to its retired workers, and its current liability is almost $21 million, Mr. Sluter said, “that you will have to pay out over the lifetime of every employee.” The village also participates in the state pension plan, with a current unfunded liability of around $8.5 million. “You always fund 100 percent of what the state requests,” he said, “which is good to keep that liability down as the years go by.”
The village also provides a Length of Service Award Program, or LOSAP, for ambulance and volunteer firefighters, with a current liability of $11.5 million, almost 74 percent of which is funded.
“It’s tough when we’re here,” Mr. Sluter said of the auditors, thanking Marcos Baladron, the village administrator, and the staff at Village Hall for their assistance and patience. “Besides that, they have to do their day-to-day jobs, they have to contend with our team here, and we request a lot of documentation.”
“A lot of those kind words do belong to Dominique Cummings, the leader of our financial team,” Mr. Baladron said of the village’s treasurer, along with Kailyn Verity, the deputy treasurer, and Lindsey LaPointe, secretary to the treasurer.
