Dear editor:

On Wednesday, Feb. 11, Shoshone Irrigation District (SID) held its annual meeting to review their performance results for the Fiscal Year ending June 30, 2025.  Since SID does not normally make the information provided at this meeting readily available to nonattendees and the information provided is very important, I wanted to disseminate it more widely.

The meeting started with commissioner election results and Ms. Stroh, who ran unopposed, was reelected.  I believe that, what I refer to as “the Stroh Amendment” which requires gross agricultural sales of at least $20,000 to be eligible to seek election as a commissioner of the SID, to be a major reason that Ms. Stroh was able to run unopposed.

The meeting then reviewed the minutes of the prior 2024 annual meeting. The meeting minutes had two main errors: 1) They stated that the financial results were presented by the SID outside auditing firm. This was incorrect as the financial results were presented by President Cox. 2) The meeting minutes made no mention of the fact that SID broke the law by exceeding their approved budget amount by about $450,000 nor did it mention that I had asked President Cox if the required prior district court approval had received.  Mr. Cox confirmed that prior approval had been received.  

There were no other corrections or revisions made and a motion to approve, with the above revisions, was made and approved.

The next agenda item was the review of the SID annual financial audit report. The handout provided by SID was available at the door for all attendees. Prior to the meeting I had made the effort and was able to receive a full copy of the SID Financial Statements. The shocking information in the Financial Statement packet was the section entitled “Schedule of findings and Questioned Costs. These items are: 1) “The District overspent its budget by $58,427 in violation of Wyoming State Statutes.” 2) “Minutes are required to be signed by two officials per Wyoming State Statues.” 3) “The District could not locate three months of minutes.” 4) Some check numbers in Quickbooks did not agree to District bank statements.” 5) Wyoming retirement was improperly paid on severance/termination pay for two employees.” 6) “Past due assessments no (sic) submitted to county for collection.” 7) “District was missing most invoices for credit card charges.” My questions about the above were addressed and in conclusion, it was noted that it was felt that most of these issues were due to recent employee turnover. As if the above was not very concerning, the auditor then moved to reviewing the cash reserves of SID. Here it was noted that cash reserves had further decreased from the prior year by $280,176 and had a negative cash flow for the year! Further SID had covered ZERO percent of their depreciation expense and the auditor stated that the recommended amount to cover is 50%. The auditor conclusion (stated in BOLD LETTERS) is as follows: Conclusion — districts cash reserves are extremely low, districts revenue is not covering 50% districts depreciation expense, districts expenses have continue (sic) to increase over the past four years. The district spent an additional $93,195 on capital projects. The district purchased $51,559 in equipment. With out (sic) immediate cuts to the districts spending and raising of rates the district’s reserves will be a critical level in a couple of years. 

For reference the unrestricted cash and investments were $2,245,336 in 2018, in 2025 unrestricted cash and investments shrank to $1,228,361. A reduction of $1,016,975! Operating Expense per Irrigated Acre climbed from $32.17 in 2018 to $49.39 in 2025, an increase of over 58%. Even more worrisome, the Cash Reserves to Operating Expenses was 212.1% in 2018 and plunged to 74.9%, a drop of 137.2 percentage points.  

The auditor concluded his statement by noting that the only expense that he felt the district could reduce was paid overtime for the hourly staff. However, he noted that SID commissioners had made the decision to provide paid overtime as a competitive tool to attract and retain hourly staff members. Therefore, the only option the district had was to raise rates to replenish the unrestricted cash reserves. Lastly, the auditor concluded that this was the last year he would be conducting the annual financial audit as he was going to begin to directly assist SID in managing their financial records and processes and that another auditing firm would therefore conduct the annual audit and prepare the financial statement.

I have tried to keep this letter to the editor a brief as possible due to space concerns. From the above you can see just how badly the financial performance at SID has been over the past several years. I strongly suggest that everyone contact their SID District commissioner and register their concerns and displeasure.

Rob Stevens

Powell