The City Council convened for a work session on December 9, 2025, primarily focused on reviewing the annual 2025 financial audit results, the status of the Comprehensive Plan, and honoring individuals for their community service. The session featured presentations from the City Auditor, external auditors, the Finance Director, and the Planning Director, followed by public comments on infrastructure and legislative priorities, and a series of recognitions for veterans, retiring officials, and community leaders.
Annual Financial Report & Audit Results
Comprehensive Plan Update
Legislative Initiatives
Want to thank you all for uh being here for tonight's work session, December ninth, twenty twenty-five. Mr. Manager, before I turn it over to you, I just want to take a second to thank you for these work sessions. I mean, they really are a great opportunity for council members to get updates and progress of uh some of the things that we're trying to achieve. So having said that, I'm turning it over to you, sir. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And on behalf of the staff, they really appreciate the opportunity as well, because it's a these are more informal meetings, though the work sessions than the council's business meetings. So I'll turn it over to the city auditor, uh, Darren uh to introduce our external auditors. Okay. Good evening, Mr. Mayor, Madam Vice Mayor, members of the City Council. My name is Darren Padilla, and I am your city auditor. We'll start tonight with a brief report of our external auditors, uh, Cherry Beckard on the results of the 2025 audit of the city's annual comprehensive financial report. Logan Booth, a partner with Cherry Beckard, will provide a high level summary of their work and confirm the overall outcome of the audit. After their remarks, our finance director, Kristen Bailey will present the highlights of the annual comprehensive financial report itself and walk us through the key financial trends and major takeaways for the year. So with that, I'll turn it over to Logan Booth. Happy holidays, everybody. All righty. Thank you, Darren. Good evening, uh, Mr. Mayor, Ms. Vice Mayor, and uh members of City Council. As Darren mentioned, my name is Logan Booth, and I'm an audit partner with Cherry Beckard uh in our Virginia Beach uh office. Um and I'm here to present the results of the annual audit of the city's financial statements for the year ended June 30, 2025. Um so most importantly, I'm I'm happy to present that uh once again the city got a an unmodified opinion on the financial statements. Um that is a clean audit that is um the highest um audit opinion that you can get, so very uh commendable for to the city and the team, Kristen and her team in accordance with the government or we conducted our audit in accordance with the government auditing standards as well as the Commonwealth's auditor of public accounts specifications for counties, cities, and towns. Um there were no items of noncompliance as it relates to the government auditing government auditing standards. There was one non-material non-compliance item under the APA specifications, and that is item number 2025 001. Um, and and that can be seen in the schedule of finding question costs in our audit report on the financial statements and management is working to address that item. Additionally, we uh typically issue an opinion on the uh single audit of the city, which is the city's federal grants. Um this year, the compliance supplements which dictate the audit requirements for these city's federal grants was delayed in issuing uh the audit requirements um due to the government shutdown. So those uh items did not come out until late November. So the single audit is still ongoing. Um, and we will uh present our results at the conclusion of the audit, and we will issue a report most likely in the new year, but we we are working diligently to get those items done. Uh there was one new audit or accounting standard uh implemented by the city uh in fiscal year 2025, and that is GASBE statement number 101 uh relating to compensated absences as required by the new standard. Um the city implemented it as of July 1, 2024. And there were no other um new accounting principles or inappropriate accounting practices uh discovered under the course of our audit. And there are a few additional um items that are required to be communicated to you all under the uh auditing standards over the course of the audit. If we had any difficulties encountered with any staff members or any disagreements with management, we would be required to communicate those. Um I'm happy to report there were there were no disagreements or uh difficulties over the course of the audit. Um if we became aware of any consultations by management or any second opinions from other auditors that management um sought out over the course of the audit, I would be required to report those, and I'm happy to record there were none. Um there were no other findings or issues um noted over the course of the audit, and there were no fraud or illegal acts uncovered during the audit. Um and there are no going concern issues noted for the city. And at the conclusion of our audit, we did receive a management representation letter dated as of the date of our report date. Um with that, I will um I'll open it up to any questions. We very much appreciate our our partnership with the city and and Kristen and her team and the cooperation of all the departments that we work with uh at the city. But I'll close there and open it up to any questions. Any comments or questions from council members? Next.