2016 Finance Department Annual Report

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2016 Annual Report • Finance Department • St. Anthony Village, Minnesota 14 The presentation of the 2015 Financial Statements within the annual audit report was modified in 2016. The Government Funds presentation will now reflect a consistent group of major funds on a year to year basis. Major funds are those with substantial financial activities, and are presented individually on the statements as oppose to within a group. In prior years specific year’s Street Improvement funds and related Debt Service Funds were defined is major only during the construction phase or refunding. Upon completion or debt retirement these funds would be removed from major presentation and grouped with other non- major funds. To the casual reader of financial statements it appeared that each year existing funds were being removed while new funds were being added. The modification in presentation format eliminates this annual movement in presentation. The 2015 financial statements presented all the Street Improvement funds on a combined basis. This produced one Major fund for overall Street Improvement funds. The same combining approach was also used for presentation of Street Debt Service funds. This will allow these funds to remain consistently presented annually, avoided the transitioning between major and non- major categories. The same combining techniques were used for the tax increment improvement and debt service funds. This approach limits the major funds presented to a consistent group of five versus rather than an ever changing mix of 9-10 funds. Additionally, the Stormwater Improvement fund and debt service funds were both closed and the remaining activities are reported in the Stormwater utility fund. The Stormwater utility fund was established as an enterprise fund given that it is fee based to support its activities. Therefore these are presented alongside the Water/Sewer Utility fund.