Cal Markert reported during Tuesday’s committee meeting of the Jefferson County Commission that the county had received its third straight clean financial report with auditors finding no problems.

“The commission’s done a great job the last 10 or 12 years,” the county manager said. “It’s been a continuous improvement process. (If) auditors find problems, we fix (them) and then just keep building. Hopefully we can continue to do that.”

Markert said the annual audit takes about five months.

“They dig through everything,” he said. It’s kind of brutal but that’s a good thing for governments. It’s a real good thing. It’s difficult but if it helps us find a problem (and) we can improve, that’s what we want to do. That’s what we want our culture to be about.”

Jefferson County is very aware of the importance of maintaining good financial practices after exiting bankruptcy on Dec. 12, 2013. The county bankruptcy, at the time the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history, was sparked by enormous debts the county incurred during court-ordered sewer construction repairs. Interest rates on the debt shot up during the mortgage lending crisis, making it impossible for the county to pay its debt and continue providing services to residents.

More than a decade has made a stark difference in the county’s financial situation.

“This year, we made our last payment on the general fund obligation bond,” Markert said Tuesday. “We have zero debt on the county’s general fund. That’s tremendous, and our fund balance is built up to a very healthy reserve. If something bad happens, we won’t have to borrow money. We’re in a good spot. Looking at our assets, we have a lot of money to spend on roads and bridges, system improvements and that kind of thing.

“It’s just an old county with a lot of old stuff here,” the county manager said. “We have a tremendous amount of assets that have to be improved on. We’re in a great spot and the commission continues to make good decisions and put the money into our assets, improving them, and (putting it into) our employees. Hopefully we can keep that going.”

Among matters that were sent to the agenda of Thursday’s commission meeting were two involving Jefferson County Economic and Industrial Development Authority.

One is an amendment to a resolution for a loan agreement with JCEIDA for JeffMet North property engineering. The second is an agreement with AECOM Technical Services for engineering of the JeffMet North project. That project includes a master plan and a utilities master plan for the long-term development of the industrial park.