City Hall given high marks in annual audit

The city of Cedar Rapids' annual financial report has received high marks from its outside auditor, McGladrey & Pullen LLP.

In fact, Michelle Horaney, a partner at McGladrey, characterized the report this week for the budget year ending June 30, 2011, as “quite an accomplishment” given the huge amount of federal and state disaster dollars that have come into and are coming through the city's budget.

She called the McGladrey audit “a clear opinion” and said the city's financial operation had “no compliance problems.”

Significant in the fiscal year 2011 budget, she said, was the city's ability to maintain a reserve fund equal to 33 percent of its annual general fund operating budget of about $100 million. Cities of comparable size in the Midwest had smaller reserve funds, she noted.

Council member Kris Gulick, chairman of the council's Finance and Administrative Services Committee, applauded the city's Finance Department, which is headed up by Casey Drew, finance director, for the additional work required of it in a time of flood recovery.

“It's a great audit report,” Gulick said.