athens tn acfr fy2024

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CITY OF ATHENS, TENNESSEE
MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS
JUNE 30, 2024
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Governmental funds. The focus of the City’s governmental funds is to provide information on near-term 
inflows, outflows, and balances of spendable resources. Such information is useful in assessing the City’ s
financing requirements. The unassigned fund balance may serve as a useful measure of a government’s 
net resources available at the end of the fiscal year for future unforeseen emergencies.
As of the end of the current fiscal year, the City’s governmental funds reported combined ending fund 
balances of $51,540,068, an increase of $1,376,567 in comparison to the prior year. Approximately 
36.58% of this total amount ($18,854,640) constitutes unassigned fund balance, which is available for 
spending at the government’s discretion. Pursuant to GASB Statement No. 54, the remainder of fund 
balance is classified as to: nonspendable - $244,810 ; restricted for a specific purpose by external 
constraint or enabling legislation - $7,033,287 (law enforcement - $93,701 ; city schools - $1,212 for 
career ladder and $314,339 for stabilization reserve ; General Obligation Bond Fund capital projects -
$1,447,234; Cemetery Perpetual Care - $305,275; Debt Service Funds for City projects - $79,226; Federal 
Projects Fund - $8,497; Debt Service Fund for Schools - $2,812,032; Hotel/Motel Tax Fund for tourism -
$683,722; Centralized Cafeteria Fund - $945,070; Internal School Fund student activities – 174,293; Drug 
Fund - $168,686); committed for a specific purpose per action of the city council - $16,674,011 (law 
enforcement - $26,168 ; Capital Improvement Fund for capital improvements - $15,148,372; School 
Construction Fund for capital projects - $1,499,471); or assigned – intended by the City to be used for a 
specific purpose - $8,733,320 (education - $7,948,219; encumbrances - $785,101).
The General Fund is the chief operating fund of the City. At the end of the current fiscal year, unassigned 
fund balance of the General Fund was $18,854,640. As a measure of the General Fund’s liquidity, it may 
be useful to compare unassigned fund balance to total General Fund expenditures. Unassigned fund 
balance represents 97.88% of total fund expenditures but represents 80.02% when compared to total fund 
expenditures and transfers to other funds (Debt Service Fund and Capital Improvement Fund).
The fund balance of the City’s G eneral Fund de creased by $386,321 during the current fiscal year. 
Revenues increased by $1,372,287 while expenditures increased by $6,136,257 before transfers to other 
funds. Property taxes increased due to an increase in the assessed value of personal property. Local and 
state sales tax continued to increase at higher-than-expected amounts. Interest earnings increased
significantly due to the increase in interest rates. Expenditures increased due to education funding, salary 
increases due to implementation of the updated classification/compensation plan and paving of city 
streets. The transfer to the Capital Projects Fund increased by $275,000.
The fund balance of the General Obligation Bond Fund decreased by $2,927,308. This was due to the 
construction of the new animal shelter, fire training tower, and road work in the area around the new city 
school.
The fund balance of the General Purpose School Fund increased by $15,625. Despite the small increase, 
there were significant increases in property taxes, sales tax and state funding, which increased over 
$2,300,000. Much of this funding was for the purchase of electric buses to replace fossil fuel buses.