City of Chatsworth, Georgia

Overview

Chatsworth's auditor, Chrysan Thomas, CPA (Trion, Georgia), issued an unmodified opinion: the FY2024 financial statements present fairly, in all material respects, the City's financial position as of December 31, 2024. The City reports two kinds of activity: governmental activities (police, fire, streets, general government and the like) and business-type activities (the Water and Sewerage enterprise fund).

In FY2024 the City as a whole added to its net position: governmental activities by $523,942 and business-type activities by $2,591,804, for a combined increase of $3,115,746. The General Fund itself, however, spent more than it took in and drew on its fund balance — see the General Fund section below.

Source: City of Chatsworth FY2024 Annual Financial Report, Independent Auditor's Report and Management's Discussion and Analysis — audited FY2024 report (PDF).

At a glance — FY2024 audited

Source: FY2024 audit, Management's Discussion and Analysis and Statement of Net Position — audited FY2024 report (PDF).

Net position — December 31, 2024

Net position is what remains after liabilities and deferred inflows are subtracted from assets and deferred outflows. Each column below sums exactly to its total.

Restricted detail (sums to the $1,517,477 above): capital projects $1,269,596 ($844,979 governmental + $424,617 business-type), debt service $112,779, public safety $68,376, program activities $66,726.

Source: Statement of Net Position, p. 15–16 — audited FY2024 report (PDF).

General Fund — FY2024 actuals vs. final budget

The General Fund is the City's chief operating fund. It took in $5,721,505 against a final budget of $5,617,515 (103,990 over), and spent $6,050,498 against a final budget of $6,641,201 (590,703 under). Even with spending under budget, revenues did not cover expenditures, so the fund balance fell.

Revenues — $5,721,505

Taxes detail — $4,308,104

Expenditures — $6,050,498

Fund balance walk

That ending balance is entirely unassigned, and equals 68.09% of General Fund expenditures — the audit's own liquidity measure. The audit attributes the draw on fund balance mainly to labor costs and rising insurance (health, workers' compensation and liability) costs.

Source: General Fund Statement of Revenues, Expenditures, and Changes in Fund Balance — Budget and Actual, p. 22–27, and Governmental Funds statement, p. 20 — audited FY2024 report (PDF).

All governmental funds — FY2024

Beyond the General Fund, the City reports SPLOST and TSPLOST capital-project funds, the American Rescue Plan Fund, and other (nonmajor) governmental funds. Every row below sums across to its total.

Combined, the governmental funds lost $396,990 on operations in FY2024 (revenues $7,504,103 minus expenditures $7,901,093), partly offset by $16,607 of other financing sources, for a net fund-balance decrease of $380,383 — from $5,480,457 to $5,100,074. The American Rescue Plan Fund spent its remaining balance down to zero.

Source: Governmental Funds Statement of Revenues, Expenditures, and Changes in Fund Balances, p. 20 — audited FY2024 report (PDF).

Water & Sewer enterprise — FY2024

The Water and Sewerage Fund is the City's business-type activity. It essentially broke even on operations, then grew its net position through intergovernmental (grant) revenue.

Operating revenues — $9,601,073

Operating expenses — $9,641,337

Operating loss: $9,601,073 − $9,641,337 = −$40,264. Nonoperating items then added a net $2,632,068 (intergovernmental revenue $2,956,622 and interest income $211,243, less interest expense $267,839, a $183,853 loss on sale of assets, and an $84,105 decrease in investment fair value), producing a $2,591,804 increase in net position — from $31,568,597 (as adjusted) to $34,160,401.

Source: Proprietary Funds Statement of Revenues, Expenses, and Changes in Net Position, p. 31 — audited FY2024 report (PDF).

Debt & capital assets

The audit reports a $3,010,094 net increase in capital assets during FY2024, driven by $6,305,552 of additions against $3,297,531 of depreciation. Note: the Management's Discussion and Analysis rounds the total to $47,660,283, $3 above the Statement of Net Position total of $47,660,280 used in the table above; the statement figure is used here because it sums exactly from its governmental and business-type components.

Questions about the report itself may be addressed to the City of Chatsworth, Georgia, 400 North Third Ave, Chatsworth, GA 30705, per the audit's "Requests for Information" notice.

Source: Management's Discussion and Analysis (capital assets and outstanding debt) and Statement of Net Position — audited FY2024 report (PDF).

Sources & notes

• Only source used: City of Chatsworth, Georgia, Annual Financial Report for the year ended December 31, 2024 (audited; Chrysan Thomas, CPA). Read the audit (PDF, UGA TED portal).
• Not used: the City's FY2026 budget listing on the TED portal — unverified (portal error on check) — and any other document. No figure on this page comes from it.
• Sum checks: every breakdown table on this page was added up before publishing; each shown total equals the sum of its shown parts. One $3 rounding difference in the audit itself is disclosed in the Debt & capital section (MD&A total vs. Statement of Net Position total for capital assets).
• What is missing: this page has no current-year budget, no FY2025 or FY2026 actuals, and no population, staffing, or service-level figures — the FY2024 audit does not supply them in a form used here, and none were invented. A newer verified document would be needed to update this dashboard.
• City palette: no high- or medium-confidence City of Chatsworth palette was on file, so this page uses the neutral Peach State Pulse dark-glass theme rather than a city color.

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