LEDC board reserves funds for facade program, receives ‘clean’ audit report

By Ben Woods
bwooods@casscountynow.com

The Linden Economic Development Corporation (LEDC) board on May 16 reserved $10,000 to be available for facade grants to local businesses.
Main Street manager Allie Anderson spoke before the LEDC about the facade grant program before board members voted to reserve funds for the program.
“Just to lay some background the facade grant is very popular in Main Street cities across the country, so this is not something that a Main Street program can pull off in the first year or even the first three years,” said Anderson. 
“It was very impressive that you have had this program for several years. That is progressive.”
LEDC also reserved $500 to fund signs advertising a farmers market in Linden. 
Preston Caver with Caver and Setser accounting firm presented the audit of the LEDC and stated that it was a clean audit. 
Caver discussed the audits of both the 4A and 4B sections of the LEDC. 
“I can tell you when I came and looked at everything and it looked good, and I am not saying that it surprised me, but for an office where you have basically one person doing everything it was in order,” said Caver. 
“If we ignore other uses and just look at operations this year between the hotel and motel and between the general, you’ve got about a $27,000 profit and just for the general that’s $30,000 above last year -- because you had a loss last year. …
“It was very easy for me to come in and look at the QuickBooks and look at the data that you had, and as far as the records everything was very easy to find,” Caver added.
The LEDC board approved the audit and next it will go before the Linden City Council for acceptance.