Albemarle receives clean audit report for ABC system

Published 2:42 pm Wednesday, November 12, 2025

ALBEMARLE — The Albemarle City Council was recently presented with the fiscal 2024-25 audit report for the city’s Alcoholic Beverage Control system.

At the council’s meeting on Nov. 3, Durham Lewis, CPA, shared the full report, summarizing that the Albemarle ABC Board had a clean audit overall for the data reviewed for June 30, 2024, to June 30, 2025.

“That paragraph indicates that we were able to give an unqualified opinion to the financial statements,” Lewis said. “That’s the highest opinion that can be given by an auditor to a set of financial statements. That means the books and records were in good order. There were no discrepancies and there were no problems.”

The auditor said that the Albemarle ABC Board provided nearly a half of a million dollars to the city in taxes over the past fiscal year, coming up to a $43,000 increase over the previous fiscal year.

“The board was able to distribute $20,510 for law enforcement, $28,714 for alcohol education, which is computed according to the formulas laid down by the state ABC Commission, and $483,000 was distributed to the city,” Lewis said.

A total of $4.8 million has been given to the city since the board’s inception.

“Council, I would say to look at the $483,000 and think about the difficult budget we had this year,” Mayor Ronnie Michael said. “Without that, where would we be? That’s about a two and a half cent property tax increase for us to be equivalent to that amount. This is very much needed for our budget, because this year is going to be even tougher.”

Albemarle’s lone ABC Store located at 1930 E. Main St. brought in a gross profit of $1.4 million last year.

Other statistics included in the audit report were a cash balance of $1,083,422, an inventory of $679,178, net fixed assets of $965,682, liabilities payables of $159,683 and a net position of $2,313,862. Additionally, there was $5.9 million for the year in total gross sales, $1.3 million paid out in various liquor taxes and a total cost of sales at $3.1 million.

“That indicates that the board was on strong financial footing,” Lewis said. “We had a strong cash position and the liabilities were paid current.”

The membership of the Albemarle ABC board is currently held by Chairman John McIntyre, General Manager Cathryn Clayton, and Members Jeffrey Flake and Terry Morgan. Under the board’s division of revenue, gross profits are distributed to law enforcement and alcohol education, while 100% of net profits are given to the Albemarle General Fund.

The Albemarle City Council will hold its next regular meeting on Nov. 17 at 6:30 p.m. in the City Hall Council Chambers.