WINNSBORO (March 1, 2017) – The Town of Winnsboro received a clean audit report during their Feb. 7 meeting from Bill Hancock, of the Brittingham Group, LLP.

“There’s no news here,” Hancock joked with the media following his report to Town Council.

While Hancock noted that the Town was approximately $45,000 over budget on expenditures, he also pointed out that the town took in nearly $78,000 more than budgeted.

“It should be noted that a lot of those decisions (expenditures) weren’t made until you realized that you were over budget (in revenues),” Hancock said, “so the bottom line in that column, the Town was about $33,000 in the black for the year.”

Winnsboro’s utilities showed a positive change in its net position of a little more than $2 million, Hancock said; however, Town Manager Don Wood clarified that that money was dedicated to debt service on the Broad River raw water line project.

“The main reason we showed this surplus was, not this past year but the year before, the local revenue bond was completely paid off,” Hancock said. “That took more than $1 million of debt service off our backs. You’re seeing the fruits of paying those debts off and not going deep into debt right away with another project. But that’s coming. We’ve got plans for raw water lines and other projects that may require a lot of this capital.”

Verizon

Council also gave the OK to Verizon Wireless to allow the company to inspect the water tank at the Walter Brown Industrial Park on Cook Road in order to determine its suitability for a wireless communications antenna.