Town Overjoyed with a Clean Audit

Town Accountant Jason Little ran through the numbers of what proved to be a squeaky clean audit for FY2011 for the town of Northborough, to the delight of Conducted by a contracted CPA firm, the management letter was "positive, and said the financial information presented is fair and accurate with no major surprises, and no material weaknesses."

Coderre, a self-described "budget nerd" said, "You are looking at one of the ew people who gets excited about budgets and audits. If you do it well, what you achieve is what you get excited about. This is the gold standard. This is the cleanest audit you will ever see in a municipal setting. I couldn't be happier, and I think it reflects well upon the town and the financial team." 

Well within predictions, a trend summary of key financial information for FY2011 showed a 4.4 percent drop in the free cash fund at $1,869,209, a slight increase in the stabilization fund at $3,605,888 and relatively the same amount in the total general fund revenues from 2010 to 2011 (a 0.1 percent decrease to $45,181,626).

"Free cash is virtually the same as last year," said Coderre," and "stabilization is at a healthy balance."

Education spending was almost the same as 2010 at $27,434, 0444, as wa employee benefits expenditures, a 0.4 percent increase to $5,606.413.

"I've been here for nine years, and this year is a treat," said

Chairman Jeff Amberson added, "The thing that impresses me is the predictability and that we were within one to two percent of what we expected to be."