The Town of Marion’s financial status is in good standing as the mayor and board of aldermen begin to look toward the town’s future.

In a meeting Tuesday, Tom Windham of Windham & Lacey, PLLC, told town officials the 2021 audit showed Marion was on a strong financial footing.

“This looks good in terms of a town your size in terms of cash in the bank,” he said. “You’re not seeing that in a lot of small towns.”

Windham said the opinion of his firm was that the town’s financial statements were accurate, which was “the best opinion you can get on a financial statement.” He also praised Town Clerk Shirley Durden for having the town’s bank statements reconciled for auditors to review.

“It’s something that’s gotten to be harder and harder to find for small towns to get done, to find people who can do it,” he said.

Marion has a healthy amount of money across its departments, with all but the water fund showing an increase, Windham said. For 2021, he said, the biggest source of income for the town was Marion’s allotment of American Rescue Plan Act funds.

The one audit finding that needed some work was doing a physical inventory of the town’s equipment, Windham said. That finding, he said, had been a repeated issue for several years.

“You know that’s required by state law, and you need to be doing that,” he said. “This is a repeat finding, and so I hope you all can get that worked out before too long.”

Mayor Larry Gill said the town was working to address the inventory issue, and he anticipated the issue would be resolved in the near future.

“The findings that your had, that has been a problem,” he said. “We’re going to try to clean that up. I’m going to make sure we do that.”

Planning for the future

In Tuesday’s meeting, the Marion Board of Aldermen also set their sights on future goals by accepting a proposal from LPK Architects to draw up plans for a new government complex.

Mayor Larry Gill said the plans would not be a full architectural design but would give the town a rough idea of what a new government complex would cost.

“This is just a step to figure out where we are,” he said.

Tim Miller, who is working as the town’s government affairs consultant, said LPK Architects will meet with the town’s leadership and department heads to figure out what features a future complex needed to include. Then, he said, the firm will draw up a rough design and cost estimates for the board to review.

The documents the city is paying for are the same documents that would be needed to apply for future grant funding that may be available to help pay for the project.

“When you try to secure funding for whatever that amount may be, this type of research and documentation is what you have to have,” he said.

Marion is growing, Gill said, and while the town is still a long way off from being ready to build a new home, having a preliminary design done and understanding what the building might cost would help the town heading into the future.