By BECKY KISER
Hays Post

Finance Director Kim Rupp somewhat jokingly referred to the 2014 City of Hays audit as “his report card” and called the process “aggressive.”

Melissa Romme, CPA, and a partner at Adams, Brown, Beran and Ball in Hays, called it “very thorough.”

Rome, with Ken Beran alongside, presented the 2014 audit during Thursday’s Hays City Commission meeting.

“Each year we try to switch up what we look at. We don’t look at the same thing year after year and try not to ask the same questions. We try to rotate the different procedures that we do,” Rome explained.

“We came in with a lot of questions and looked at different areas. A lot of it centered around the airport FAA grants,” she said.

In 2014, Hays received a $920,133 grant from the Federal Aviation Administration to rehabilitate the Hays Regional Airport terminal. The city paid the remaining cost of $445,496, which came from the Airport Improvement, Airport Operating and City Commission Financial Policies funds.

As required by Kansas statute, the city of Hays hires an outside firm to conduct an annual audit of city finances. The audit represents an unbiased opinion of business practices and the financial soundness of all city funds.

“We can happily report we have no citations for you this year,” Beran told commissioners. “We found no problems with your audit this year.

“Our job as auditors is to recommend things we see that can maybe improve your system. We do a number of audits and we believe you have a topnotch system,” he added.

“I’m looking at your auditor’s results and there’s no irregularities or weaknesses,” commented mayor Eber Phelps.

“That’s a real tribute to Kim and everybody involved,” he added.

The 2014 Hays budget is available on the city website.