Auditing Willard: A small city's budget, its sewer debt and its latest audit

This series examines Willard's public financial records: its audited statements, its budgets and the council decisions behind them. This first piece sets out the city's finances as its most recent audit, for the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2025, reports them. ^[1]

Ulrich & Associates, P.C., of Ogden signed the audit report on Feb. 23, 2026. It states that the financial statements "present fairly, in all material respects," the city's financial position and the changes in it for fiscal 2025. ^[1]

The size of the budget

The General Fund, the city's main operating fund, collected $2,179,833 in fiscal 2025 and spent $1,834,647. The audit says spending was $612,214 below the final budgeted amount of $2,446,861. ^[8][3]

Taxes brought in $1,206,735, including $558,610 in sales and use tax, $320,511 in property tax and $172,119 in franchise tax. The General Fund also collected $200,855 in fines. ^[8][6]

In the audit's budget comparison, highways and public improvements had a final budget of $783,432 and spending of $255,145. Fire department spending was $128,783, against a final budget of $122,886. ^[9]

Reserves

The General Fund's balance rose from $545,812 to $791,817 during the year. Of that, $444,483 was unassigned, $244,543 was restricted for Class C roads, $44,994 was restricted as unspent grant proceeds and $49,940 was assigned to the fire department. ^[7][8]

A separate Capital Projects Fund held $1,141,717, assigned to capital projects. The city's governmental funds together ended the year with $1,933,534. ^[7]

Across all activities, the city reported total net position of $15,822,815, of which $10,872,405 was net investment in capital assets. ^[5]

Debt

The city's only bonded debt is its Series 2015 sewer revenue bonds, which had $8,633,000 outstanding on June 30, 2025, with $298,000 due within a year. The audit says the debt is secured solely by specific revenue sources and that the General Fund had no debt. ^[4][10]

The audit reports total long-term liabilities of $9,080,268, a figure that also includes net pension liabilities and compensated absences. ^[2][4]

Compliance and redevelopment

The auditor's report on internal control states that it did not identify any deficiencies it considered material weaknesses, and that its tests disclosed no instances of noncompliance required to be reported under Government Auditing Standards. ^[11]

Its report under the State Compliance Audit Guide covered areas including budgetary compliance, fund balance, impact fees and the fraud risk assessment, and states that Willard complied in all material respects. ^[12]

The audit states that the city's financial reporting entity "consists of the primary government and no component units." It does not include a redevelopment agency. ^[13]

The current budget

On June 25, 2026, the City Council voted 4-0 to adopt Resolution 2026-08, the final operating and capital budgets for fiscal 2026-27, and voted 4-0 to keep the property tax rate unchanged. ^[14]

The copy of the budget in the meeting packet on the state's public notice website is a scanned image.