Backlogs delay audit submissions

grant also contributed to the purchase.

The property will be developed as a public trails preserve, with as many as 10 miles for horseback riding, PLC said in an emailed statement. The trails will also accommodate runners and walkers, but not cyclists because horses and bikes aren’t necessarily compatible, said Palmer McIntyre, PLC’s conservation planner.

The property had been listed as containing 113 acres. A survey found it actually has 115 acres, McIntyre said.

The transaction represents the first time that the three municipalities and the county have collaborated jointly on a preservation and recreational project, according to PLC. It said acquiring the property will help protect Greensboro’s drinking water supply while providing a route for the Piedmont Greenway, a proposed 19-mile trail from Greensboro to Winston-Salem.

Late last year, PLC hired Destination by PATTI STOKES STOKESDALE/SUMMERFIELD – An unsigned draft audit is as much as Rex Rouse said he could provide until he has received minutes from several Stokesdale Town Council meetings. Rouse, a partner with the accounting firm Rouse, Rouse, Penn and Rouse, LLP, presented the draft audit at the council’s Jan. 14 meeting; the presentation was on the council’s Dec. 10 meeting agenda, but a few hours before that meeting began the council learned the presentation would have to be postponed because the accountant was still waiting for meeting minutes.

Municipalities with fiscal years ending June 30 normally have until Oct. 31 to submit their annual audit to the state’s secretary of the Local Government Commission (LGC). Because of COVID-19’s impact on local governments, the N.C. Dept. of State Treasurer extended this year’s deadline to Jan. 31.

Meanwhile, Stokesdale Town Clerk Alisa Houk is pushing through a months-long backlog of audio recordings to document finance-related discussions and votes from council meetings. Last month the council approved Houk working from home one day a week to focus on completing them. by Design, a recreational trails design firm based in Boone, North Carolina, to help create a site plan for the trails preserve.

PLC said it will own the property temporarily until it is transferred to the town of Summerfield for permanent ownership and management. At that point, PLC and town officials will seek grant funds to cover the costs for developing the site with parking and trails.

They plan to seek a grant from the North Carolina Parks and Recreation Trust Fund (PARTF). Summerfield Town Manager Scott Whitaker said he doesn’t expect the town to take ownership of the property until “all efforts to get grant funding from PARTF are exhausted.”

That probably won’t occur in 2021, Whitaker told the Northwest Observer in an email, because qualifying for PARTF grants can be “a slow process” spanning multiple

It’s coming, it’s coming...

2021

Backlogs delay audit submissions

years, if municipalities get any money at all. Houk reported at the Jan. 14 meeting she had made progress, but still needed to complete September, October, November and December meeting minutes.

Houk has previously told the council meeting minutes were backlogged due to pandemic-related challenges, a higherthan-usual number of council meetings, budget meetings and closed sessions over the last several months, and to the deputy clerk being out for several weeks this fall while recovering from surgery. Until a few months ago, the town clerk also served as the town finance officer. Stokesdale is published by the only northwest Guilford County town with its own municipal water system, which Houk is also involved with. PS Communications’ 13th annual Northwest FINDER

Other municipalities in the county are will be headed to mailboxes and newspaper also pushing the Jan. 31 deadline. As of Jan. 20, Guilford County, Sedalia, Gibson- racks throughout northwest Guilford County ville, Summerfield and Whitsett had not in the coming week. It’s got lots of great submitted their audits to the LGC. Summerfield Finance Officer Dee Hall said her “need-to-know, fun-to-know and good-to-know” financial work for the annual audit was information about your community, so keep it handy completed in August, but the Whitevillebased firm the town contracted with to and use it often throughout the year! perform this year’s audit has experienced COVID-related issues that required staff to The Northwest Observer • Totally local since 1996 be quarantined several times, creating a backlog that the firm is still wading through. JAN. 21 - FEB. 3, 2021 5