City of Socorro gets its second perfect audit

Two years in a row, the City of Socorro has received a glowing review for another clean audit for its annual financial report.

Southwest Account Solutions LLC of Albuquerque reported at last week’s city council meeting, it found “no audit findings” in this year’s audit conducted for the year ending June 30, 2024.

No audit findings means during an audit, the auditor did not identify any significant issues or areas of non-compliance with relevant regulations or accounting standards, essentially giving a “clean” report indicating the organization’s financial statements are considered accurate and reliable, with no material misstatements found.

This past August, the City of Socorro’s perfect audit award for its previous year’s audit (2023) by the Office of the State Auditor. Clean books in government are a tremendous accomplishment and show a commitment to transparency, accountability and excellence in reporting.

Mayor Ravi Bhasker acknowledged the hard work City Finance Director Ruby Lopez and her team puts forth developing the city’s annual financial report each year during the council meeting.

Auditors stated in its report to council: “In planning and performing our audit of the financial statements, we considered the City’s internal control over financial reporting (internal control) to determine the audit procedures that are appropriate in the circumstances for the purpose of expressing our opinions on the financial statements, but not for the purpose of expressing an opinion on the effectiveness of the City’s internal control. Accordingly, we do not express an opinion on the effectiveness of the City’s internal control. A deficiency in internal control exists when the design or operation of a control does not allow management or employees, in the normal course of performing their assigned functions, to prevent, or detect and correct, misstatements on a timely basis. A material weakness is a deficiency, or a combination of deficiencies, in internal control, such that there is a reasonable possibility that a material misstatement of the entity’s financial statements will not be prevented, or detected and corrected, on a timely basis.

“A significant deficiency is a deficiency, or a combination of deficiencies, in internal control that is less severe than a material weakness, yet important enough to merit attention by those charged with governance. Our consideration of internal control was for the limited purpose described in the first paragraph of this section and was not designed to identify all deficiencies in internal control that might be material weaknesses or significant deficiencies. Given these limitations, during our audit we did not identify any deficiencies in internal control that we consider to be material weaknesses.

The report also noted as part of obtaining reasonable assurance about whether the City’s financial statements are free from material misstatement, it performed tests of its compliance with certain provisions of laws, regulations, contracts, and grant agreements, noncompliance with which could have a direct and material effect on the determination of financial statement amounts.

“However, providing an opinion on compliance with those provisions was not an objective of our audit, and accordingly, we do not express such an opinion. The results of our tests disclosed no instances of noncompliance or other matters that are required to be reported under Government Auditing Standards,” the report indicated.

A copy of the audit report can be found on the city’s website under the fiancé tab.

In other business, the council:

• Approved the publication of Ordinance Number 2024-12-17 with the New Mexico Environment Department for the purpose of increasing the funding of the clean water state revolving loan fund by $250,000 in the loan funding and $500,000 in grant funding.

• In an effort to retain City of Socorro employees, the council approved that all permanent full-time employees will receive a one-time longevity stipend of $500 and part-time and temporary employees a one-time longevity stipend of $250.

• Approved a capital outlay reauthorization request for $700,000 to plan, design, construction, purchase and equip a multi-purpose building for commercial and industrial development on a remediated environmental protection agency superfund site near Socorro in Socorro County. Presenting the bill in the senate will be Senator Crystal Diamond Brantley.

• Approved a new business license for Kevin L. Mayer, of Intraworks, Inc., of Albuquerque. Mayer’s business is described as low voltage security.