A local accountant had great things to say about the City of Powell’s financial health at this week’s city council meeting.

“It’s been many years since the City of Powell has been this financially strong,” said James Seckman, a Powell-based CPA.

Contracted to audit the city’s books, Seckman presented his findings for the fiscal year that ran from July 1, 2018 to June 30, 2019 during Monday’s council meeting.

The audit had no significant findings, and Seckman praised Finance Director Kaela Nelson, saying it was a “very clean audit.”

The city’s total revenues were $18.2 million for the fiscal year, with expenses coming in just under $17 million. According to the audit report, revenues exceeded expenses largely as a result of the specific purpose tax, which paid for the Absaroka Street project.

“The City of Powell is the only entity we deal with that shows an operating income,” Seckman said; operating income measures the amount of profit realized from an entity’s operations after deducting expenses, according to Investopedia.com.

The total assessed valuation of the taxable property within the city amounted to nearly $48 million, up 4 percent from the previous fiscal year.

“The financial health of our city has grown,” Seckman told the council.

The city maintains five enterprise funds for the utility services it provides: electric, water, sewer, garbage, and fiber internet. Seckman said all these funds were doing surprisingly well.

“One common theme you can see in these numbers is that in every one of our proprietary funds, our cash was up, which is unique,” he said. “We audit almost all the cities and towns in the entire [Big Horn] Basin, and the City of Powell is the only one that has had a cash increase in every single enterprise fund. So, again, we’re doing a fantastic job in generating revenues and keeping our costs down in our enterprise funds.”

The city’s debt situation was also in good shape. Total balance on debt from employee pensions, accrued vacation and sick leave — and a Wyoming Department of Transportation loan for an airport hangar — stood at $5.2 million. Powell’s enterprise fund debt balance at the end of the fiscal year was $2.5 million.

With only a small amount of debt, Seckman noted that the city owns most of its $75 million in assets.