Auditing Tooele: what the city's audit and budget show

Auditing Tooele is a Utah Ledger series that reads Tooele City's audits, budgets, meeting minutes and contracts and reports what they show. This series covers Tooele City and its redevelopment agency, not Tooele County. ^[1][2]

This first piece sets out the baseline from the city's most recent audited financial statements, for the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2025, and its adopted budget for fiscal 2027, which runs from July 1, 2026 to June 30, 2027. ^[1][2]

The city posts its audit reports and budgets on its finance department's Audits & Budgets page. ^[3]

The audit

Larson & Company of Spanish Fork dated its independent auditor's report Nov. 21, 2025. It said the statements "present fairly, in all material respects" the city's financial position. ^[1]

The audit's management discussion reports a citywide net position of $312,545,462 at the end of fiscal 2025. The statement of net position shows $39,794,623 of that as unrestricted. ^[1]

The general fund, which pays for most day-to-day services, took in $33,063,584 in fiscal 2025, including $24,197,677 in taxes. It spent $28,342,667 and transferred $3,819,501 to other funds. ^[1]

The city's final general fund budget for that year had projected $30,582,528 in revenue and $30,272,966 in spending. Actual revenue was $2,481,056 above the final budget, and actual spending was $1,930,299 below it. ^[1]

The general fund's balance rose $1,036,724 during the year, from $12,624,911 to $13,661,635. Of that, $445,926 was restricted for debt service and $13,215,709 was unassigned. These are accounting balances, not a count of cash in the bank. ^[1]

The audit's notes say the city follows the state's minimum general fund balance requirement of 5% of total revenues. ^[1]

Debt

The management discussion says the city had total debt outstanding of $40,195,641 at the end of fiscal 2025, and that its legal limit for general obligation bonds was $156,251,760. ^[1]

The Ledger could not read the audit's detailed debt schedules in machine-readable form and has not used them in this story. ^[1]

Redevelopment

Tooele's Depot redevelopment fund ended fiscal 2025 with a fund balance of $9,385,330, of which $9,344,343 was assigned to redevelopment agency projects and $40,987 was restricted for debt service. The fund recorded $4,760,715 in tax revenue that year. ^[1]

The fiscal 2027 budget says the Depot project area "has sunset and is no longer collecting tax increment," and that remaining funds are used to complete project area needs. It budgets $2,045,758 for the Depot fund. ^[2]

A separate 1000 North Community Reinvestment Area fund, which accounts for tax increment within that area, has a fiscal 2027 budget of $205,000. ^[2]

The fiscal 2027 budget

The budget's summary table lists $80,475,969 in the approved column for all city funds combined. That total adds the funds together and can count money moving between city funds more than once. ^[2]

The general fund's approved fiscal 2027 budget is $37,026,499, including $1,821,668 labeled as use of fund balance. These are planned amounts, not spending that has happened. ^[2]

The budget book carries a budget message dated May 6, 2026, which describes itself as the tentative budget. ^[2]

What comes next

Later stories in this series examine the city's 2026 property tax increase proposal, a sewer bond authorization, a mid-year transfer from general fund balance to capital projects, the Depot redevelopment fund after its sunset, and a storm-drain contract tied to a business park land sale.