Laurens County receives ‘clean’ audit for 2025

The Laurens County Commission on Tuesday approved a “clean” audit for fiscal year 2025, but it came along with a few budget amendments.

“We had a clean opinion. What that means is for all material purposes, our audit was materially correct and accurate, as were our financial statements,” said county Finance Officer Donna Lumley 

To balance the budget for the year, it was amended with $749,000 from the general fund to cover expenditures, mostly from health insurance costs and Hurricane Helene. 

The county ended the year with more than $22 million in its general fund, Lumley said.

Also at the meeting, the commission agreed to a resolution that allows the county board of education to issue bonds to build new facilities on East Laurens. The school board plans to build a new elementary school and middle school athletic complex, at a combined cost of about $40 million. The bonds will allow the school board to borrow money against the future sales tax collections so that construction projects can begin.

The commission approved a resolution, as the county’s taxing authority, pledging to adopt the school board’s millage rate as recommended, should the sales tax underperform and not raise enough money to cover the local share of the projects, County Administrator Bryan Rogers said.

In other business, Dublin City Councilman Bennie Jones spoke to the board during public comments and asked if the county’s animal control officers could do more to address the stray dog issue in the city.

Rogers said about 70 percent of animals picked up by the county are from Dublin. Part of the city’s problem is that people are moving from rental properties and leaving their pets behind.

“We trying to implement some things that hopefully will make a huge difference,” Rogers said.