News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
The final days of July mean long days for Upper Cumberland County Finance Directors, tying up last year’s fiscal year budget.
White County Finance Director Chad Marcum said things get hectic this time of year. Marcum said he and his staff are nearing the completion of the month-long process.
“They are just waiting on me to close books here at the end of the year so they can start auditing our fund-level accounting,” Marcum said. “We work really closely with them this time of year and just try to get done quickly for them because they have deadlines that they have to meet as well and lots of other counties that they have to get to.”
The deadline for counties to submit documentation is August 31st. Fentress County Finance Director Tyler Arms said since the county has already passed its current fiscal year budget, they have had an easier time with closing up last year’s budget.
“That is one thing off our back,” Arms said. “Just trying to wrap everything up. It is not too terrible I mean running around is what we see this time of year, so the girls are paying bills and are pretty busy right now trying to get everything keyed in and entered and get what we can paid before we close.”
Arms said less employment turnover has also made this year less of a struggle.
“That has made the past couple of years stressful,” Arms said. “And maybe that is what seems to be making this year a little smoother, but we have maintained our employees through the end of this fiscal year and not had turnover this year and it has made it pretty easy to stay on top of it. We have a really good group in there that is paying bills and handling payroll, and that’s able to keep that up. I don’t think I could make it without them.”
Marcum said he is targeting to be ready for audit by August 5th as they are what the state calls a first-round county since they are typically one of the first counties to be audited. Marcum said he and his staff try to stay on top of things throughout the year.
“If you don’t take care of things throughout the year and you wait until the end of the year to do them all it just makes it nearly impossible,” Marcum said. “So we just try to stay on top of it as we go throughout the year and then that helps make things go a little bit smoother here at the end.”
Arms said the work of a county finance director is a never-ending cycle.
“I sometimes joke and say it is a vicious cycle,” Arms said. “Once we get our budget passed and we try to pass that in June, and we’ve done that all but one year. Then we roll into our year-end closing and then we have an audit and by the time we complete our auditing and go through all of our exits, and our audit committees we turn right back around and go into budget. It is just kind of a cycle of itself and you kind of just got to settle in and go with it.”
