Lehi's building authority paid $116,695 more in debt service than budgeted in fiscal 2025, while spending $12.2 million less overall
The authority that financed Lehi's new City Hall and library paid more principal and interest than its budget allowed in fiscal 2025. Its construction spending was $12.3 million below budget, and its original and final budgets were identical.
Continuing story: Auditing Lehi
Lehi's Local Building Authority spent $116,695 more on debt service than its budget allowed in the year ended June 30, 2025, according to the budget-to-actual statement in the city's annual financial report. [1]
The authority's total spending that year was $12,232,054 below budget. [1]
What the authority is
The authority is legally separate from the city and "was established to construct city facilities and service the associated debt," the report says. [1]
Bonds issued through it in 2022 paid for the city's new library and City Hall and its fourth fire station, which was completed in October 2024; the report says construction of the library and City Hall is almost complete. [1]
The city adopts an annual appropriated budget for the authority's fund, and the report compares that budget with actual results. [1]
The figures
The authority paid $330,846 in principal against a $220,000 budget, $110,846 over, and $1,521,524 in interest against a $1,515,675 budget, $5,849 over. [1]
Those two differences add up to $116,695. [1]
Capital outlay was $19,151,251 against a $31,500,000 budget, and total spending was $21,005,621 against $33,237,675. [1]
The statement lists the same amounts for the original and final budgets on every line. [1]
The fund also took in $921,691 in interest on investments that wasn't budgeted, and received $1,735,680 in transfers against $1,735,675 budgeted. [1]
Its fund balance fell from $33,687,451 to $15,339,201 during the year, compared with the $2,185,451 the budget projected. [1]
The audit
Osborne, Robbins & Buhler issued an unmodified opinion on the city's fiscal 2025 financial statements on Dec. 11, 2025. [1]
The pages of the report The Ledger reviewed don't explain why debt service exceeded the budget. [1]
The $116,695 is the difference between budgeted and actual debt service, not a construction cost overrun; the authority's total spending was below budget. The combined figure is The Ledger's sum of the two variances shown in the report. The pages of the report reviewed don't explain the difference.
Sources
Reporting by The Utah Ledger from the public records above. AI-assisted, checked against those records.