Belmont Audit Committee Meeting - June 5, 2026
Belmont Audit Committee Meeting – June 5, 2026
The Audit Committee met to discuss the annual audit plan for fiscal year 2026 and review the proposed fiscal year 2026–27 budget. No public comments were received for either agenda item. The committee recommended the budget to the City Council for approval.
Audit Plan Discussion
- Auditor Amy presented the annual audit plan, covering audit scope, responsibilities, and fraud considerations. The audit will include the city's financial statements, Measure I financial statements, and compliance testing for Measure A and W. No single audit or Transportation Development Act (TDA) audit is anticipated for FY26.
- Group audit considerations: Silicon Valley Clean Water (SVCW) and San Mateo Consolidated Fire Department will be included as separate entities audited by other auditors.
- Audit timing: interim fieldwork completed March/April; year-end fieldwork scheduled for weeks of September 7 and 14, 2026.
- No questions were raised by committee members.
FY26–27 Budget Review
- Budget Manager Joanne presented the budget, assisted by new analyst Jackie. The total citywide budget is $94.9 million, including $82.9 million for operations (city and fire district combined) and $12 million in capital improvement projects (CIP).
- General fund resources are budgeted at $35.3 million, with requirements of $36.1 million, leaving an $800,000 gap. Departments identified $300,000 in savings (e.g., delaying vacant positions), and the remaining $500,000 will be drawn from the unassigned fund balance.
- The state reimbursed only two-thirds of the Vehicle License Fee (VLF) backfill for FY26, causing a $600,000 revenue loss. No FY27 backfill ($1.8 million) was budgeted, for a total revenue impact of $2.4 million.
- Property tax is the largest revenue source (39%), followed by sales tax (12%) and hotel tax (12%). Business license tax (BLT) revenue increased from $1.2 million to an estimated $1.6 million annually due to modernization (gross receipts model) and apportionment adjustments with large businesses. Staff noted that the new structure is more equitable—smaller businesses pay less, larger businesses pay their fair share—but acknowledged volatility if large businesses leave.
- Service charges (internal allocations) were explained as reimbursements from enterprise funds (e.g., sewer, fire) to the general fund for administrative support.
- Long-term projections under worst-case assumptions (no VLF backfill) show the general fund reserve falling below the 33% target by FY32. The reserve policy (33% of expenditures) equates to about four months of operating expenses.
- CIP budget of $12 million focuses on sewer/storm (46%), street pavement (33%), and other projects including pipeline replacement ($3.6 million) and pump station upgrades ($600,000 with additional $5 million planned for FY28).
- Committee members asked clarifying questions, commended the clear presentation, and noted appreciation for the staff's work.
Key Outcomes
- A motion was made and seconded to recommend the FY26–27 budget to the City Council for approval. The motion passed without objection.
- No other formal votes were taken.
Committee Updates and Staff Items
- Michael Omini, the city's accounting manager, was introduced remotely. No further updates were provided. The meeting adjourned at 11:03 a.m.
Meeting Transcript
Do we need to start a look? No. Okay. You can do it. Do you have to do any? Okay, you're good to go. Okay. All right. Then I will start in. All right. Good morning, everyone. I will share my PowerPoint, which I had all ready to go, but now I can't. But there we go. All right. And when I do the presentation, I probably won't be able to see you. So please feel free to stop me. It is not. Sorry, it's having a moment. It says I'm sharing. You can see it, right? And it's just not full screen. There we go. Okay. Oh, I can still see you. Okay. But still, you're very tiny. So if you have any questions, please do stop me along the way as we go through this. So this is, as Grace mentioned, this is the annual audit plan discussion that we do. You know, as you know, we do this at the planning stage of the audit and then also at the end with the audit results later later in the year. So the city's audit is conducted in accordance with under auditing standards generally accepted in the United States of America, as well as government auditing standards issued by the comp controller of the US. Then and what the the uh government auditing standards are often called yellow book. You might hear reference to that. And that's when there's the compliance component to it. Like if you have a federal, when you have your federal grants and other compliance that you required, there's the two, you know, we have to follow the audit standards, and then also additional standards uh reply required by the yellow book. So those stand those audit standards require us to discuss the audit process with you, including our responsibility, the planned audit scope, group audit considerations, audit timing, management representations, and then fraud considerations. So before we get into uh those topics, just wanted to have the summary here of the reports that we audit. These are the reports that'll be issued at the end. We audit the the city as a whole, in which the results of that are included in the annual comprehensive financial report, then there's the measure I financial statements, and then we perform compliance testing and issue compliance reports on the measure A and W programs, and then federal award programs when you expend the threshold change this year. It was 750,000 in the past, uh, and so now it's a million dollars or more in any one year. And so that now that the ARPA money is exhausted, that's gonna you know come and go when you when you expend funds or not. Excuse me, and then Transportation Development Act Fund reports uh when you have those audit, excuse me, grants can't talk this morning. Those grants from TDA, excuse me, from MTC, like the bike path grants and those types of things, those audits are required when you expend funds and draw from MTC, then that triggers the need for an audit for an audit. So that's why those those come and go from time to time. And we don't anticipate that for this fiscal year that we will be required to have a single audit or a TDA. Okay, so then we will stop at the measures. Perfect. Great. All right, then so our responsibility um as described in the professional standards is to express opinions about whether the financial statements present prepared by management with your oversight are fairly presented in all material specs in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles or gap as we call it. Uh our audit, however, does not relieve you or management of your responsibility. So ultimately, management and you are responsible for the financial statements and we perform an audit about them being fairly stated and materially correct.
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