Mukilteo turned in financial statements to auditors 7 months late

Published 12:00 pm Thursday, April 2, 2026

EVERETT — The city of Mukilteo turned in its fiscal year 2023 financial statements to state auditors late, officials said in a city council meeting Monday, about 7 months beyond a state-required deadline.

State law requires governments to file annual reports to auditors by May 30. Mukilteo filed its report to the Washington State Auditor’s Office 221 days late, a draft of the state audit report shared by the city read. The city cited a significant turnover in staff as the reason for the delay.

The full audit report is expected to be released next week, state auditor Kirk Gadbois said at Monday’s council meeting.

The good news for Mukilteo is that its financial statements were clean, Gadbois said. There were no material weaknesses or instances of noncompliance with state laws in the city’s financial statements. But the audit found that the city had multiple smaller issues in its internal controls — including omissions of certain revenues — that amounted to the State Auditor’s Office issuing a finding.

“When you put them all together, and look at the process that they have over how they prepared their financial statements, that’s where we identified some weaknesses in that system that led to a lot of these smaller items, and that’s where it was raised to the level of a finding and reported to the council,” said Courtney Amonsen, the state audit manager for the city of Mukilteo, in an interview Wednesday.

The audit also stated that the city has an ongoing issue with reporting of its capital assets, as the ending balance for capital assets listed on financial statements sometimes didn’t line up with internal software that tracks the assets.

Mukilteo finance director Ana María Núñez said during Monday’s council meeting that when she joined the department, the city’s financial statements were already behind schedule, and were having to train multiple new employees amid significant turnover.

Those difficulties contributed to the city sending its 2023 financial statements to the auditor’s office late, and the subsequent backup has also led to a delay in Mukilteo sending its statements from the 2024 fiscal year. Those documents, submitted to the state on March 26, were also months late, the auditors said.

“GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) financial statements are very complex, very difficult to assemble,” Gadbois said Monday. “I know the city has gone through a lot of turnover over the years.”

The vast majority of governments turn in their statements to auditors on time, Amonsen said Wednesday. But Mukilteo is not alone in its delay. Out of the nearly 300 government agencies submitting financial statements to auditors for the 2024 fiscal year, 13 were late, and 14 that haven’t yet filed their statements, she said.

In a letter responding to the auditor’s findings, the city wrote that turnover in the finance department was significant beginning in 2022. For 15 months, there was no finance director on site in Mukilteo. Temporary staff came and left, leading to constant training.

Between April and June of 2024, five new staff members joined the department, including the new finance director. Because of need for training and the recent departures, the city was unable to dedicate enough resources to complete its financial statements on time, it wrote.

In response, the staff have attended training, assigned specific portions of the financial statement preparation to trained staff and conducted a review of the department’s schedules, the city wrote. The department is also meeting often to provide updates on the status of the tasks assigned.

The city now has the policies and procedures in place to “avoid all of the drama and trauma” from the work on the prior financial statements, Núñez said during Monday’s council meeting. In regard to the issue of capital assets, the finance department hired a temporary accountant to complete an updated accounting of the city’s assets.

The city expects to turn in its 2025 fiscal year financial statements on time, along with resolving the issue surrounding its capital expenditures.

“Yes, we had a very rocky start,” Núñez said Monday. “I am very proud of my staff right now and I am very proud of the work that we do. If things continue in the current vein, we will be filing the financial statements for fiscal year ‘25 in a timely manner.”

Staff turnover at the department has stabilized in recent years, Núñez said in an interview Thursday. As the department delegated tasks related to the preparation of the annual financial statements to multiple staff members, it has diversified the workload and allowed the work to get completed faster. The department is also consistently tracking expenditures and revenues throughout the year to make sure the process of putting together the financial statements is spread out throughout a longer period of time.

“Staff has worked extraordinarily hard,” Núñez said Thursday. “And I want everyone to understand that solutions don’t come overnight. Solutions that come overnight usually don’t last. Time and effort puts you ahead.”

Will Geschke: 425-339-3443; william.geschke@heraldnet.com; X: @willgeschke.