The audited finances of the City of LaFayette, Georgia — county seat of Walker County, and a separate government from Walker County (no county figures appear on this page). LaFayette is a utility-heavy city: most of its net position, and all of its debt, sit in its electric, water/sewer, gas, airport, golf, and solid-waste funds.
The headline fund-balance total needs its context. The General Fund — the city's main operating fund — ended FY2024 with $56,649, of which only $34,395 is unassigned (the rest, $22,254, is nonspendable inventory). Its balance fell $1,019,783 during the year, and governmental unrestricted net position is negative: −$289,350.
General Fund expenditures of $10,988,438 were nearly double its own revenues of $6,131,498. The gap was covered by $3,837,157 of transfers in, mostly from the city's own utility funds — Electric $2,300,000, Water/Sewer $800,000, Gas $710,000, plus $27,157 from the Hotel/Motel fund. Transfers in exceeded the General Fund's entire tax revenue ($3,073,114). Meanwhile, 98.9% of the total governmental fund balance ($5,050,029 of $5,111,871) is restricted SPLOST / T-SPLOST capital-project money that cannot pay general operating bills.
Source: City of LaFayette, Georgia Financial Statements, For The Fiscal Year Ended September 30, 2024 (audited, Chrysan Thomas CPA), pp. 18–19, Note 5. UGA TED — city-lafayette-fy2024-financial-report.pdf
Total net position rose +$12,107,557 in FY2024, from $44,820,054 (restated) — governmental +$1,440,074, business-type +$10,667,483. That increase is grant-driven, not recurring: it includes $8,533,386 of federal airport capital grants for the runway project and $4,737,827 of governmental capital grants. The American Rescue Plan Fund also spent down to $0 during the year, transferring $2,592,757 to the Fiber Optics Fund.
| Component (Sep 30, 2024) | Governmental | Business-type | Total primary gov't |
|---|---|---|---|
| Net investment in capital assets | $10,867,145 | $33,944,482 | $44,811,627 |
| Restricted for capital projects | $5,050,029 | $516,772 | $5,566,801 |
| Restricted for law enforcement activities | $5,193 | — | $5,193 |
| Unrestricted | −$289,350 | $6,833,340 | $6,543,990 |
| Total net position | $15,633,017 | $41,294,594 | $56,927,611 |
Sum-checked: governmental and total components foot to their printed totals; governmental + business-type = total.
The Lafayette Development Authority (the label used in the financial statements; Note 1 describes it as the Downtown Development Authority, created to administer downtown revitalization) is a discretely presented component unit — not the city. Its net position at Sep 30, 2024 was $625,831 (net investment in capital assets $359,808 + unrestricted $266,023), and its FY2024 change was −$202,555. It is never included in city totals on this page. The LaFayette Housing Authority is a related organization only and is not part of the reporting entity; no Housing Authority figure appears here.
Source: City of LaFayette, Georgia Financial Statements, FY2024 (audited), Statement of Net Position, p. 15; Statement of Activities, pp. 16–17. UGA TED document
All governmental funds combined. Note the intergovernmental line is dominated by one-time capital money: ARPA $2,483,029, 2020 SPLOST sales tax $1,157,363, and T-SPLOST $478,571. Taxes on this basis: General Fund $3,073,114 + Hotel/Motel tax $72,106 = $3,145,220.
Sum-checked: rows sum to the printed total of $10,472,460; the same total is reproduced by summing the six fund columns (General $6,131,498 + 2014 SPLOST $2,272 + 2020 SPLOST $1,215,034 + T-SPLOST $513,906 + American Rescue Plan $2,535,383 + Other $74,367).
Capital outlay detail: General Government $424,032; Recreation $1,216,037; Police $257,329; Public Works $73,964; Engineering $18,128. Sum-checked: current $9,818,827 + capital outlay $1,989,490 + debt service $7,835 = $11,816,152, the printed total.
Result for the year, as printed: excess (deficiency) of revenues over expenditures −$1,343,692; other financing sources, net +$1,217,243 (transfers in $3,837,157; transfers out −$2,619,914); net change in fund balances −$126,449; beginning balances (restated) $5,238,320 → ending $5,111,871.
Source: City of LaFayette, Georgia Financial Statements, FY2024 (audited), Statement of Revenues, Expenditures and Changes in Fund Balances — Governmental Funds, p. 19. UGA TED document
| Fund (Sep 30, 2024) | Fund balance |
|---|---|
| Capital Projects — 2020 SPLOST | $3,365,965 |
| Capital Projects — T-SPLOST | $1,633,185 |
| General Fund | $56,649 |
| Capital Projects — 2014 SPLOST | $50,879 |
| Other governmental funds (Police Forfeiture $5,193; Hotel/Motel $0) | $5,193 |
| American Rescue Plan Fund | $0 |
| Total governmental fund balances | $5,111,871 |
| Classification — total governmental funds | Amount |
|---|---|
| Restricted — acquisition and construction of capital assets (SPLOST / T-SPLOST) | $5,050,029 |
| Unassigned (General Fund only) | $34,395 |
| Nonspendable (inventory) | $22,254 |
| Restricted — law enforcement activities | $5,193 |
| Total | $5,111,871 |
Sum-checked: funds sum to $5,111,871; composition foots to the same total; the balance-sheet equation holds (liabilities $6,717,744 + deferred inflows $505,193 + fund balances $5,111,871 = total assets $12,334,808). General Fund composition: nonspendable $22,254 + unassigned $34,395 = $56,649.
The MD&A's fund summary (Table 5, p. 11) reports combined governmental fund balances of $5,106,678 because it omits the city's nonmajor ("Other") governmental funds ($5,193). This page uses the audited fund statements' totals ($5,111,871) throughout.
Source: City of LaFayette, Georgia Financial Statements, FY2024 (audited), Balance Sheet — Governmental Funds, p. 18. UGA TED document
On the accrual basis, governmental activities took in $10,996,927 and spent $10,774,096. These totals differ from the fund-basis figures above by design (accrual vs. modified accrual — e.g., taxes are $3,635,416 government-wide vs. $3,145,220 on the fund basis). Never mix the two bases in one comparison.
| Source | Amount |
|---|---|
| Capital grants & contributions | $4,737,827 |
| Charges for services | $1,986,121 |
| Operating grants & contributions | $469,465 |
| Total program revenues | $7,193,413 |
| Source | Amount |
|---|---|
| Local option sales tax | $1,380,042 |
| Property taxes | $1,112,905 |
| Insurance premium tax | $611,334 |
| Franchise taxes | $254,782 |
| Investment earnings | $117,749 |
| Malt beverage taxes | $102,873 |
| Hotel/motel taxes | $72,106 |
| Occupation taxes | $71,489 |
| Miscellaneous | $49,669 |
| Intangible taxes | $29,885 |
| Gain on sale of capital assets | $680 |
| Total general revenues | $3,803,514 |
| Transfers in from business-type activities | $1,217,243 |
| Total general revenues & transfers | $5,020,757 |
| Function | Expenses | Net (expense) revenue |
|---|---|---|
| General Government | $2,862,554 | +$2,660,879 |
| Police | $2,799,377 | −$2,673,865 |
| Public Works | $2,018,080 | −$1,197,952 |
| Recreation | $1,499,949 | −$775,609 |
| Fire | $830,521 | −$830,521 |
| Engineering | $414,466 | −$414,466 |
| Garage | $303,931 | −$303,931 |
| Tourism & Promotion | $44,949 | −$44,949 |
| Interest on long-term debt | $269 | −$269 |
| Total governmental expenses | $10,774,096 | −$3,580,683 |
General Government's net is positive only because of a $3,752,689 capital grant. Change in governmental net position: −$3,580,683 + $5,020,757 = +$1,440,074. Sum-checked: expense rows foot to $10,774,096; taxes detail foots to $3,635,416; program + general revenues = $10,996,927.
Source: City of LaFayette, Georgia Financial Statements, FY2024 (audited), Statement of Activities, pp. 16–17. UGA TED document
Business-type revenues were $35,094,424 against expenses of $23,209,698 — but FY2024 is dominated by the airport runway project: $8,533,386 of federal capital grants and $18,778,875 of airport-heavy construction in progress. Do not read the +$10,667,483 business-type increase as recurring operating performance. On the proprietary-fund statements: operating revenues $25,879,769, operating expenses $22,856,787, operating income $3,022,982.
| Fund | Expenses (gov-wide) | Charges for services | Capital grants | Net revenue | Net position 9/30/2024 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Airport | $421,474 | $130,354 | $8,533,386 | +$8,242,266 | $9,408,048 |
| Electric | $12,000,875 | $14,531,530 | — | +$2,530,655 | $9,869,506 |
| Water/Sewer | $6,563,574 | $6,941,984 | $636,314 | +$1,014,724 | $19,977,442 |
| Gas | $1,786,602 | $2,559,175 | — | +$772,573 | $2,756,545 |
| Fiber Optics | $0 | $1,464 | — | +$1,464 | $2,851,843 |
| Golf | $1,185,978 | $969,670 | — | −$216,308 | −$1,416,080 |
| Solid Waste | $1,251,195 | $745,592 | — | −$505,603 | −$2,152,710 |
| Total business-type | $23,209,698 | $25,879,769 | $9,169,700 | +$11,839,771 | $41,294,594 |
Change in business-type net position: $11,839,771 + investment earnings $44,955 − transfers out $1,217,243 = +$10,667,483. Sum-checked: expense, charges, and capital-grant columns each foot to their printed totals; each fund's net recomputed.
Golf ended FY2024 with a net position of −$1,416,080 and Solid Waste with −$2,152,710. Solid Waste also ran a −$505,603 government-wide net expense, and its landfill closure/postclosure liability grew $413,901 during the year. These deficits are part of the audited record and are shown, not smoothed over.
Federal awards context: the Schedule of Expenditures of Federal Awards totals $12,116,039 (DOT Airport Improvement Program $8,323,341; Treasury SLFRF $1,758,236; EPA State Revolving Fund $1,398,148; Appalachian Regional Commission $636,314). This is an expenditure schedule, not revenue.
Source: City of LaFayette, Georgia Financial Statements, FY2024 (audited), Statement of Activities pp. 16–17; proprietary fund statements pp. 22–24; Note 5; SEFA p. 60. UGA TED document
Every dollar of the city's $16,371,080 of outstanding debt sits in the business-type (utility) funds and is repaid from utility revenues. Governmental activities carry $0 of bonded or long-term debt. That does not mean $0 obligations — pension, landfill, and compensated-absence liabilities are listed separately below and are not bonded debt.
| Item (face / principal) | Amount | Treatment |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue bonds payable — Water/Sewer, 2.00%, issued 2/19/2013, matures FY2032 | $3,575,000 | Bonded debt, business-type only. Debt-service schedule foots (principal $3,575,000 / interest $448,719). |
| Notes payable — 8 GEFA water/sewer loans, 1.25%–3.00% | $12,444,929 | Debt, business-type only. Includes $7,145,341 of draws on three loans not yet closed at year-end (payments begin after closing in 2025); the printed debt-service schedule ($5,299,589) covers only the five closed loans. |
| Capital leases payable — golf carts, garbage truck, electric utility truck | $351,151 | Debt-like obligation, business-type only (payments $438,626 − interest $87,475). The governmental fire-truck lease was paid off in FY2024 (principal $7,566); governmental leases at year-end: $0. |
| Total debt outstanding (face) | $16,371,080 | All business-type. MD&A states the same total. |
| Unamortized bond premium | $28,061 | Carrying-value add-on, not additional principal. Face $16,371,080 + premium = carrying value $16,399,141. |
| Net pension liability (GMEBS plan, measured Jan 1, 2024) | $2,247,891 | Long-term obligation, NOT bonded debt. Governmental $1,272,145 + business-type $975,746. Total pension liability $17,276,071 − plan net position $15,028,180; plan 86.99% funded; liability = 42.32% of covered payroll ($5,312,262); FY2024 pension expense $711,534. |
| Landfill closure / postclosure liability (Solid Waste) | $587,932 | Environmental liability, NOT debt. See the Note 15 disclosure below. |
| Compensated absences | $504,823 | Obligation, NOT debt. Governmental $322,737 + business-type $182,086. |
| Net OPEB liability | None reported | The statements contain no OPEB liability or OPEB note. |
Business-type amounts due within one year: $961,686. Sum-checked: loan-by-loan GEFA detail foots to $12,444,929; lease present-value schedule foots to $351,151; pension split and funded-status arithmetic foot.
Note 9 discloses project guarantee shares of $84,607,982 under the city's MEAG power purchase contract (MEAG's own outstanding debt is $8,195,323,494). This is a contractual commitment, not city indebtedness — it is never added to the debt totals on this page.
Source: City of LaFayette, Georgia Financial Statements, FY2024 (audited), Notes 7–10, 15; MD&A p. 14. UGA TED document
No adopted budget book is published for this city, and the only other items on file are stale (an FY2016 proposed budget and an FY2013 adopted budget) — neither is used here. The only budget figures on this dashboard are the budget-vs-actual schedules printed inside the audited FY2024 statements, labeled exactly as the statements present them: the General Fund schedule as an annual budget comparison, and the SPLOST / T-SPLOST schedules as project-length (life-of-project) budgets.
| Original budget | Final budget | Actual | Variance vs final | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total revenues | $4,637,397 | $6,155,397 | $6,131,498 | −$23,899 |
| Total expenditures | $8,347,022 | $11,038,022 | $10,988,438 | +$49,584 (under) |
| Transfers in | $3,710,000 | $3,810,000 | $3,837,157 | +$27,157 |
| Net change in fund balance | +$375 | −$1,072,625 | −$1,019,783 | +$52,842 |
| Fund balance, Sep 30 | $1,076,807 | $3,807 | $56,649 | — |
The original appropriation of $8,347,022 ties to the MD&A's budgetary-highlights narrative. Sum-checked: Original, Final, and Actual columns each foot; Actual ties exactly to the fund statement (p. 19).
Function-line footnote: function detail in the audit's budget schedule differs from the fund statement by $50,000 between General Government and Recreation — the schedule reports Actual General Government of $2,561,556 and Culture and Recreation of $2,117,101, while the fund statement's detail implies $2,511,556 and $2,167,101. Both presentations foot to the same agreed total of $10,988,438, and the Police, Public Works, and Engineering lines reconcile exactly. This page publishes the schedule's totals, which agree.
| Fund | Project-length budget (expenditures) | Actual revenues FY2024 | Actual expenditures FY2024 | Fund balance 9/30/2024 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 SPLOST | $2,880,000 | $2,272 | $201,781 | $50,879 |
| T-SPLOST | $2,500,000 | $513,906 | $394,289 | $1,633,185 |
| 2020 SPLOST | $6,600,000 | $1,215,034 | $186,695 | $3,365,965 |
The revenue budget columns in these schedules are $0 — the project budgets cover expenditures only — so no revenue "variance" is charted from them. Cumulative SPLOST expenditures to date (pp. 61–63): 2014 SPLOST $2,635,118; T-SPLOST $2,038,456; 2020 SPLOST $884,163. Sum-checked: each Actual column ties exactly to the fund statements.
Source: City of LaFayette, Georgia Financial Statements, FY2024 (audited), General Fund budget schedule p. 21; SPLOST / T-SPLOST budget schedules pp. 50–52. UGA TED document
These figures were extracted from the document's full text while the UGA TED portal was under maintenance (HTTP 503), read from the search-indexed rendering of the exact PDF linked throughout this page. Every figure was arithmetically cross-checked against the statements' own printed totals (204 checks run against the source build spec; the statements' figures govern wherever the document disagrees with itself), but all figures are subject to a spot re-verification pass against the PDF itself — in particular the $50,000 function-line item and the $1–$3 items below, which could in principle be indexing artifacts rather than source errors.
The auditor reported one significant deficiency (Finding FS24-01): various general-ledger accounts — including cash, revenues, and disbursements — were not being reconciled or reviewed timely, and supporting documentation was not always maintained. No material weakness was identified, and the auditor's opinions are unmodified. The finding is disclosed here as printed context for the figures.
Fund-basis (modified accrual) and government-wide (accrual) totals differ by design: taxes are $3,145,220 on the fund basis vs. $3,635,416 government-wide; General Government is $2,483,625 of current fund expenditures vs. $2,862,554 of government-wide expenses. Every table on this page carries its basis label. Also note a presentation difference in the source: the proprietary fund statements report business-type totals gross of interfund balances (assets $70,550,857; liabilities $29,618,756), while the government-wide statement eliminates them (assets $62,817,332; liabilities $21,885,231). This page uses the government-wide totals.
Note 15 states the landfill closure/postclosure liability as $666,580; the proprietary fund statement and the Note 8 rollforward carry $587,932. The $78,648 difference is exactly the amount Note 15 separately describes as the cost "remaining to be recognized" — the note appears to state total estimated closure cost as the liability. This page uses the statements' $587,932, which foots through the rollforward ($174,031 + $413,901).
The MD&A narrative states governmental activities revenues of $10,996,917; the MD&A highlights and the Statement of Activities report $10,996,927 (difference: $10). The MD&A narrative states total expenses before transfers of $33,983,791; the Statement of Activities prints $33,983,794 (difference: $3). The statements' figures — which foot from their own detail — are used on this page. (The MD&A's fund-summary omission is disclosed in the fund-balance section above.)
The statements contain several $1–$3 rounding/typography differences between notes and statements — e.g., the Statement of Net Position accounting equation is off by $1 (governmental) and $2 (business-type) against its printed totals; Note 8's notes-payable total ($12,444,929) differs by $2 from the proprietary statement's carrying sum; the fund statement prints carrying debt of $16,399,139 vs. the statements' $16,399,141. None changes any headline figure at the precision shown here; printed statement totals are used.
The combining statements for nonmajor governmental funds (pp. 48–49) contain literal "#REF!" cell errors in the printed document. The affected totals still foot to the audited fund statements, and this page uses only those footed totals — the defective rows are not reproduced. The defect is part of the source record and is consistent with Finding FS24-01 above.
Beginning balances were restated for an error correction in the 2020 SPLOST Fund: beginning fund balance $2,245,066 → $2,337,626 (+$92,560), and governmental beginning net position $14,100,383 → $14,192,943 (Note 18). FY2023 comparative figures in the MD&A are pre- or post-restatement depending on the table; this page uses FY2024 figures, plus beginning/change figures expressly labeled as such.
The audited statements print no population figure (the report has no statistical or demographic section), so none is shown on this page.
All figures are FY2024 (October 1, 2023 – September 30, 2024), audited. They are not calendar-2024 figures and not current-year figures. The auditor's report is dated July 31, 2025. Every figure's status is "Audited" — nothing on this page is an adopted-budget figure except the audited statements' own budget-vs-actual schedules, labeled as the statements present them.
Source for this page: City of LaFayette, Georgia Financial Statements, For The Fiscal Year Ended September 30, 2024 — Independent Auditor's Report by Chrysan Thomas, Certified Public Accountant Professional Corporation (Trion, Georgia), unmodified opinions. City Manager: David Hamilton. https://ted.cviog.uga.edu/FINANCIAL-DOCUMENTS/sites/default/files//budgetdoc/financial-report/city-lafayette-fy2024-financial-report.pdf