ASHEBORO – The Randolph County Board of Commissioners received a positive report on its annual audit during the group’s first meeting of the year Monday.
“All four of the opinions we rendered are what we call unmodified opinions,” said April Adams, Partner at Cherry Bekaert, the county’s auditing firm. “Those are the best opinions you can get. It’s giving you an indication that your financial statements are free from material misstatement and that’s the highest level of assurance we can give you as an audit firm.”
It’s another year of clean audits for the county which has made such accolades a habit.
“The accountability for the dollars that we get and what we do with it,” said Darrell Frye, chairman of the county commissioners. “Never been any questions about what we do with it, it’s all public in how we use it. We’ve received a national award every year for almost 30 years for governmental accounting.”
The board was also presented with a report from the county’s Tourism Development Authority stating that for 2023, Randolph County Travel generated $189.5 million in visitor spending, an increase of 6.1% from 2022.
The board then approved a request from the sheriff’s office for approximately $500,000 in additional funding for three items that the office designated as a critical need.
Those items included the replacement of 110 computer and laptop devices as part of the county’s replacement plan for outdated equipment, 14 vehicle upfits and the replacement of the X-ray machine at the front of the court house.
“We made a little money last year to appropriate fund balance for that,” commissioner David Allen said. “So we’re not diving into savings to do this.”
The board also set a date for a public auction for the sale of property located on Link Court in Trinity to be held at 10 a.m. Feb. 17.
“The county has a piece of property that it acquired in a tax foreclosure sale,” associate county attorney Aimee Scotton said. “Basically, if we think a property is going to sell, we will bid in the amount of the taxes and fees associated with the sale so we at lest get what we’re owed. If we do that and nobody outbids us, we are the high bidder and we end up owning the property and that does end up happening from time to time including this time in 2022.”
While a prospective bidder has come forward for the property, in order for the county to put the property back up for sale, they have to hold a competitive auction.
“It’s not an ideal situation, but right now we’re not collecting any taxes on the property because we own it,” Scotton said.
Finally, the board approved a $117,000 contract with Aviat U.S. for the purchase and installation of microwave dish equipment as part of the VIPER tower upgrades.
“These are microwave dishes that will go on the new tower as well as two others to connect the VIPER towers to the rest of the state’s system,” said Jared Byrd, deputy chief of Emergency Services. “It will be installed along with the rest of the equipment.”
The Randolph County Board of Commissioners will next meet Feb. 3.
