PERALTA — The town of Peralta received an unmodified audit for fiscal year 2020-21 with the exception of a single, minor finding for not having enough collateralization of the town’s bank accounts.
According to town of Peralta Deputy Clerk and Treasurer Steve Robbins, the issue was discovered and corrected prior to the auditors even arriving for the annual procedure.
“It’s really a bank function to monitor this, but it kind of also falls on us, too,” Robbins said. “So, we caught it. We got a monthly statement from [New Mexico Bank and Trust] on collateralization, so we found it and corrected it by Sept. 30 of ’21.”
The town was short about $930,000 in collatoratization, which Robbins described as an “ace up the sleeve” in case the bank fails, the town won’t lose all of its money.
The town of Peralta currently has just more than $3.5 million in non-interest bearing checking accounts and about $1.2 million split between one savings and four CD accounts. The FDIC will automatically insure the two types of accounts — interest bearing and non-interest bearing — for $250,000 each, amounting half a million in insurance for the town.
The state requires governmental agencies to collateralize 50 percent of the funds in their accounts not already protected by FDIC, of which Peralta only had $1.2 million, or $931,333 short.
The audit reflects the issue was corrected by July 30, however Robbins clarified that was when the issue was found. However, he does not have documentation of the correction until September 2021.
Town of Peralta: 2021 fiscal year audit
Makayla Grijalva was born and raised in Las Cruces. She is a 2020 graduate of The University of New Mexico, where she studied multimedia journalism, political science and history.
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April 18, 2024
