Reading remained in a strong overall financial position despite ending its 2024 fiscal year with an operating deficit, according to a team of auditors who reviewed the city\u2019s books for last year.<\/p>\n
Christopher M. Turtell and Megan Thompson, partners with Cherry Bekaert, formerly Herbein + Company Inc., presented Reading\u2019s 2024 external audit at City Council\u2019s committee of the whole meeting Monday.<\/p>\n
The auditors reported that the city received clean opinions for its financial statements and federal programs, meaning there were no significant deficiencies or compliance issues.<\/p>\n
The city\u2019s general fund ended 2024 with an operating deficit of about $1.9 million, Turtell said, but remained in a strong overall position with a total fund balance of $44.4 million, including $36.5 million unassigned.<\/p>\n
That amount far exceeds the minimum reserve target of 20% of the budget, or about $22 million.<\/p>\n
Turtell said the deficit was largely the result of revenue shortfalls and expenditure overruns.<\/p>\n
On the shortfall side, the general fund budget showed a $6 million revenue overspend, he said, noting this was offset by actual performance. In addition, licenses, permits \u2014 particularly rental and housing permits \u2014 and fees were below budget.<\/p>\n
In expenditures, Turtell said, an overspend of $1.5 million contributed to the deficit. Public safety overtime, especially in EMS operations, was a major driver, he noted.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe city\u2019s reserves are still in excellent shape,\u201d he said, noting that overall revenues performed close to expectations.<\/p>\n
Earned income tax continued to be the city\u2019s largest revenue source, the auditors said, noting it has not only eclipsed real estate taxes as the primary revenue driver for the general fund, but has continued to increase year over year.<\/p>\n
In 2024, EIT was budgeted at about $26 million but actually brought in over $30 million, a significant $4 million favorable variance, Turtell said.<\/p>\n
The auditors also reported continued improvement in internal controls, citing three related findings in the 2024 report, down from four the previous year.<\/p>\n
They emphasized these were not major problems but rather communication and bookkeeping issues that can be resolved through better coordination and tracking.<\/p>\n
The first issue arose from a $500,000 state grant that was mistakenly recorded in the American Rescue Plan fund instead of the appropriate state grant account.<\/p>\n
Because that amount was misclassified, it was incorrectly reported as ARPA spending in federal reporting.<\/p>\n
The third finding involved ensuring expenditures are properly matched to their correct funding sources.<\/p>\n
Turtell said none of the findings represented material weaknesses, and overall internal control improvements were evident.<\/p>\n
\u201cThree is a very low number,\u201d he said. \u201cYou have a very large operation here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Turtell called the city\u2019s financial position healthy and noted Reading continues to build on the fiscal stability achieved in recent years.<\/p>\n
Jack Gombach, city managing director, and Jamar Kelly, deputy managing and financial director, said they were pleased with the results of the audit and noted the city\u2019s ongoing progress since exiting Act 47 oversight in 2022.<\/p>\n
Both thanked and credited the city\u2019s fiscal management and accounting team for maintaining solid management practices.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Reading remained in a strong overall financial position despite ending its 2024 fiscal year with an operating deficit,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1767,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[349,182,139,28,736,128,130,129,706],"class_list":["post-23698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-berks-county","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-reading","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news","tag-top-stories-reg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23698\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}