RICHMOND — Richmond’s budgetary record keeping was given a clean bill of health following a recent audit. The city’s main focus now is recouping $139,000 in funds improperly paid out to former employees and preventing the mistake from happening again.

Results of an audit into Richmond’s 2023-24 fiscal year budget was presented to the city council during a meeting Tuesday. The audit, conducted by accounting firm Badawi & Associates, found that the city has fairly healthy record keeping practices.

“There are no audits that have no risks,” said Ahmed Badawi, president and founder of Badawi & Associates. “Overall, I’d say the record keeping of the city is in good condition.”

One area in need of improvement is the city’s handling of personnel action forms which specify a change in an employee’s status, such as getting a promotion or being terminated. Delays in filing or processing these forms have cost the city $139,000 over the years due to former employees being paid despite no longer working for the city.

The issue has become less prevalent but did occur during the 2023-24 fiscal year, Badawi said, noting his team will be looking for the issue to be corrected when auditing fiscal year 2024-25 records.

City Manager Shasa Curl assured the council the issue is being addressed through the creation of a more robust payroll team. In addition to increased staffing, Curl said compensations have also been increased.

Ultimately, Curl said audit results indicate the city is in a stable place with only minor record keeping issues to correct.

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“What I think is really important to take away from the presentation is that overall the city’s financial controls are strong and we have adequate reserves,” Curl said. “In the scale of things for a city of our size, the magnitude and everything we’re balancing, that means we’re doing really good because the area we need to focus on is something we can address.”

Meanwhile, audits into financial records for the Richmond Housing Authority are behind by years but Badawi said his team should be caught up with reviewing those records by the end of 2026.

The Richmond Housing Authority was designated as troubled by the Department of Housing and Urban Development about a decade ago and given a checklist of areas in need of improvement, which included the authority’s finances, Curl said.

Since Curl became city manager in 2022, she said the city adopted a practice of subsidizing the Richmond Housing Authority to keep it from accruing a negative fund balance given that the authority does not receive enough funding from HUD to operate. The city has also covered about $15 million in authority expenses, Curl said.

Housing Authority staff have also been working closely with the auditing team to get the years of audits complete, Curl said.

“We do acknowledge that we’re on a path of continuous improvement but it has been a quantum leap forward in terms of what we initially inherited,” Curl said. “It’s been a long road.”