How much would you think Starke County has in assets? If you guessed $41 million, you would be close.
That figure was revealed at this week’s Starke County Commissioner’s meeting. The county is required to do a capital assets report each year to update records. Bill Nielson of Government Fixed Asset Services, Inc. said that the assets are unbelievable.
“That’s equipment, vehicles, buildings, roads, and bridges,” said Nielson. “That doesn’t include the little stuff.”
The State Board of Accounts is very interested in seeing those asset reports.
“You’re constantly buying things and getting rid of things and that needs to be reflected. You have to take out the retirements every year, add in the additions and recalculate the depreciation.”
The company Nielson works for has been doing this assessment for the past five years.
“It’s a necessary evil. You’ve got to do it. What we did five or six years ago was take a least cost approach and then with the annual update we take a least cost approach. We’re not inventing the wheel, we’re basically meeting the requirements of the Board of Accounts. Their requirements are simple. They expect you to do this. They expect you to have a handle, or some sort of an idea, on what you’ve got in terms of assets.”
Nielson will be working with Auditor Kay Chaffins on assembling the data for the report.
