Auditing Vineyard: What the city's audit, budget and redevelopment records show

This series examines Vineyard's finances through public records: the city's audited financial statements, its adopted budgets, state reviews, and meeting minutes and packets of the City Council and the Vineyard Redevelopment Agency. Each story links the documents behind every figure.

Vineyard's most recent audited financial report covers the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2025. The firm Gilbert & Stewart of Provo wrote in a report dated Dec. 10, 2025 that the statements "present fairly, in all material respects" the city's financial position. The firm said it did not express an opinion on the effectiveness of the city's internal control. ^[1]

In its separate reports, the firm said it did not identify any internal-control deficiencies it considered material weaknesses, while noting that such weaknesses may exist that were not identified, and that its tests disclosed no noncompliance required to be reported under Government Auditing Standards. On the state compliance requirements it tested, including budgetary compliance and fund balance, it found the city complied in all material respects. ^[4]

Net position and fund balances

Management's discussion in the audit reports that the city's assets and deferred outflows exceeded its liabilities and deferred inflows by $120,954,112 at June 30, 2025, an increase of $16,094,492 from the year before. Of that, $23,393,211 was unrestricted. ^[2]

The general fund, the city's main operating fund, ended fiscal 2025 with a fund balance of $5,026,056, up $1,042,317. Its actual revenues were $14,162,332 and its expenditures were $10,953,463, before transfers. ^[2][5]

The redevelopment agency fund ended the year with $18,161,593, all restricted for the agency, after a decrease of $3,823,518. ^[2][7]

Debt

Management's discussion lists $88,763,689 in total outstanding long-term debt at June 30, 2025, of which $70,992,374 was in governmental activities and $17,771,315 in business-type activities. Those totals include bond premiums, leases and notes payable to developers. ^[3]

Three governmental bonds account for $56,101,318 of principal: a 2016 tax increment revenue bond with $3,250,318 outstanding, a 2017 RDA bond with $19,776,000 outstanding and a 2021 RDA tax increment revenue and refunding bond with $33,075,000 outstanding. The debt note schedules $74,219,886 in principal and interest on those bonds through 2049. ^[3]

Who is in the city's books

The Vineyard Redevelopment Agency is a separate legal entity from the city, and the City Council serves as its board, according to the State Auditor. The audit reports the agency as a blended component unit in its own special revenue fund, so the agency's balances are already part of the city's totals. ^[8][9]

The agency's project area covers the former Geneva Steel Mill industrial site. A note added to the fiscal 2025 statements describes tax-increment agreements that reimburse developers or participating entities for infrastructure and environmental remediation there. ^[10]

The budget

Vineyard's fiscal 2025–26 final budget, dated June 25, 2025, totals $84,982,462 across all funds. It balances the general fund at $15,898,867, including $103,677 drawn from prior-year fund balance, and budgets $34,737,051 for the redevelopment agency fund, including $16,414,610 drawn from that fund's balance. ^[6]

Those are appropriations, not actual spending. The Ledger has not confirmed the final adopted figures for fiscal 2026–27. ^[6]

What this series covers

A June 2025 limited review by the Utah State Auditor reported three findings and two observations about the city and its redevelopment agency for January 2018 through March 2025, and the city disputed parts of it. Later stories in this series examine that review, the tax-abatement disclosure the city added afterward, the redevelopment agency's fiscal 2025 budget and spending, and the agency's follow-up review of its reimbursement payments. ^[11]