by Dennis Dalman
news@thenewsleaders.com
Once again, as in years before, the city of Sartell received rave reviews for it annual audit, which was presented to the city council at its April 22 meeting.
The presenter of the 2018 audit report was Steve Wischmann of the auditing firm of BerganKDV.
Wischmann used many superlatives during his presentation: the highest level of assurance for the city’s financial statements, consistency, excellent job, a very good balance of revenue and expenditures, right in line with budgeted expectations, high degree of expertise in managing the budget.
Wischmann singled out for praise Sartell Financial Director Heidi Ostlie and City Administrator Mary Degiovanni. He said they cooperated with efficient professionalism in getting all the financial data to the auditing firm. The audit began in March, and its completion was expedited much quicker than usual because of the city staff’s thorough timeliness.
“It went very, very well,” he said.
The controls of the budget, he said, “are very, very good, but not perfect.” But Wischmann quickly added that in his 23 years of auditing he has yet to see a system of “perfect controls.”
Sartell, he said, can be very proud of its financial management, which he said “compares very favorably” to those of other area cities.
