Hart County, Georgia

Overview

Hart County's auditor, Burch, Crooms & Company, LLP (Hartwell, Georgia), issued its opinion on March 20, 2024: the FY2023 financial statements present fairly, in all material respects, the County's financial position as of September 30, 2023. The County reports governmental activities (general government, judicial, public safety, public works, health and welfare, recreation and culture, housing and development) and business-type activities (solid waste, Corps of Engineers sites, and three blended component units — the Industrial Building Authority, the Joint Development Authority of Franklin, Hart & Stephens Counties, and the Hart County Water & Sewer Authority).

In FY2023 the primary government added $8,628,562 to its net position: governmental activities by $8,207,784 (from $69,183,014 to $77,390,798) and business-type activities by $420,778 (from $33,198,176 to $33,618,954). The governmental funds, by contrast, drew down their combined fund balance by $4,343,837 — chiefly the jail construction project spending down bond proceeds — even as the government-wide position improved, because capital outlays are treated differently in the two presentations.

Totals on this page are for the primary government only. The County's two discretely presented component units (the Hart County Library and the Hart County Health Department) are legally separate and are excluded from these totals; their combined net position of $243,877 is disclosed in the audit's Statement of Net Position but is not added in here.

Source: Hart County FY2023 Annual Financial Report, Independent Auditor's Report and Management's Discussion and Analysis — audited FY2023 report (PDF).

At a glance — FY2023 audited

Source: FY2023 audit, Statement of Net Position (p. 19) and Management's Discussion and Analysis — audited FY2023 report (PDF).

Net position — September 30, 2023

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 — governmental, $28,027,449

Business-type restricted ($462,943) is capital projects $316,993 plus debt service $145,950. Note: the audit's Management's Discussion and Analysis summary table rounds the primary-government total to $111,008 thousand; the Statement of Net Position total of $111,009,752 is used here because it sums exactly from its components.

Change in net position — FY2023

Source: Statement of Net Position, p. 19, and Statement of Activities, p. 20 — audited FY2023 report (PDF).

General Fund — FY2023 actuals

The General Fund is the County's chief operating fund. It took in $18,248,978 and spent $14,468,110, a surplus of $3,780,868 before transfers. Its unassigned balance of $15,897,752 equals 109.9% of General Fund expenditures — the audit's own liquidity measure — and total fund balance equals about 112.7% of expenditures.

Revenues — $18,248,978

Taxes collected by the County totaled $14,480,735 (property $8,351,121 + motor vehicle and title $1,832,338 + sales and use $4,149,392 + other taxes $147,884). Revenues plus transfers in were $18,252,455, which the audit reports as $2,965,957 above the final revenue budget of $15,286,498.

Expenditures — $14,468,110

Fund balance walk

Ending balance composition (sums exactly): nonspendable $410,733 + unassigned $15,897,752 = $16,308,485. The audit notes $14,105,417 of the balance was cash.

Source: Governmental Funds Statement of Revenues, Expenditures, and Changes in Fund Balances, p. 23, and Management's Discussion and Analysis (General Fund highlights) — audited FY2023 report (PDF).

All governmental funds — FY2023

Beyond the General Fund, the County reports the ARPA, Multiple Grant, Jail Construction Project, SPLOST #5, Insurance Premium Tax, and EIP funds, plus nine nonmajor funds combined. Every total below sums from its shown parts.

Revenues — $30,587,212

Expenditures — $34,375,797

Ending fund balances — $44,492,730

Fund-balance walk: beginning balance $48,836,567, less the net decrease of $4,343,837 (revenues minus expenditures −$3,788,585, plus other financing uses of −$555,252, being transfers out $658,729 less transfers in $103,477), equals the ending $44,492,730. Fund-balance composition (sums exactly): nonspendable $567,529 + restricted $28,027,449 + unassigned $15,897,752 = $44,492,730. The Jail Construction Project Fund was created in FY2022 from $25,355,000 of Certificates of Participation to build a new jail; by September 30, 2023, $18,161,835 had been expended on construction, which is why the governmental funds drew down while the government-wide position rose. The ARPA fund ended the year at $0, with $2,598,807 of its grant still classified as unearned revenue.

Source: Governmental Funds Balance Sheet, p. 21, and Statement of Revenues, Expenditures, and Changes in Fund Balances, p. 23, and Management's Discussion and Analysis (other governmental funds highlights) — audited FY2023 report (PDF).

Enterprise (business-type) funds — FY2023

The business-type activities lost $294,581 on operations, then grew net position by $420,778 after nonoperating items and transfers in of $611,113.

Operating revenues — $4,592,262

Operating expenses — $4,886,843

Net position by enterprise — $33,618,954

Net-position walk: beginning $33,198,176 + change $420,778 = $33,618,954. The Water & Sewer Authority is the largest enterprise by far; the Industrial Building Authority and Joint Development Authority are blended component units reported as business-type activities, not standalone county departments.

Source: Proprietary Funds Combining Statements of Net Position (p. 25) and of Revenues, Expenses and Changes in Fund Net Position (p. 26) — audited FY2023 report (PDF).

Debt & capital assets

Governmental capital assets ($58,294,325) are nondepreciable $20,088,192 plus depreciable net $38,206,133. Business-type capital assets ($31,937,211) are nondepreciable $6,085,542 plus depreciable net $25,851,669. Total capital assets rose from $77,566,172 in FY2022 to $90,231,536 in FY2023 (about 16.3%), driven by construction on the new jail facility and a new fire station building, vehicles, and road and water-system infrastructure. The $25,355,000 of Certificates of Participation was issued in FY2022 for the jail; FY2023 interest and paying-agent fees on that debt were $691,621. Long-term liabilities are shown here as notes/certificates only; compensated absences, pension, and OPEB liabilities reported in the Statement of Net Position are not added into the debt total above.

Source: Statement of Net Position, p. 19, Reconciliation of the Governmental Funds Balance Sheet, p. 22, and Management's Discussion and Analysis (capital assets and noncurrent liabilities) — audited FY2023 report (PDF).

Livability Index

Peach State Pulse composite · Not an official rating

This is our composite, not an official rating. Each component score is a percentile rank among Georgia counties, with 100 always meaning most livable on that measure. The composite is the mean of the available component scores — for Hart County, the mean of the 7 scored components above. Where a component score is “—”, no value is shown because none could be verified; nothing is estimated or substituted. See all 159 counties on the state Livability Rankings page.

Major Employers

Largest employers named by a public source · Display only — not part of the index

• Nestle Purina Petcare Company — Manufacturing · Hartwell
  Source: Georgia Department of Labor
• Brakebush Brothers, Inc. — Manufacturing · Hartwell
  Source: Georgia Department of Labor
• Haering Precision USA, L.P. — Manufacturing · Hartwell
  Source: Georgia Department of Labor
• Ingles Markets, Inc. — Retail · Hartwell
  Source: Georgia Department of Labor
• Walmart — Retail · Hartwell
  Source: Georgia Department of Labor

Colleges

IPEDS 2024–25 · Display only — not part of the index

No postsecondary institution with a physical campus in this county in the IPEDS listing.

Public Schools

NCES EDGE 2024–25, by school physical location · Display only — not part of the index

Serving district(s): Hart County · 5 public schools physically located in the county.

Weather — Hartwell, Georgia

Live National Weather Service forecast · County seat

Longer-range outlooks: NOAA Climate Prediction Center 8–14 day outlooks. Forecast point: Hartwell coordinates 34.35355, -82.93266. The forecast above is fetched live from api.weather.gov when this page loads — it is never a baked-in snapshot.

Sources & notes

• Only source used: Hart County, Georgia, Annual Financial Report for the year ended September 30, 2023 (audited; Burch, Crooms & Company, LLP, opinion dated March 20, 2024). Read the audit (PDF, UGA TED portal).
• Dated basis, repeated: figures from the FY2023 audit — the most recent verified audit available; newer figures were not verifiable. This page presents no FY2024, FY2025, or FY2026 figure, and no figure has been updated, estimated, or carried forward from the FY2023 audit.
• Sum checks: every breakdown table on this page was added up before publishing; each shown total equals the sum of its shown parts. One rounding difference in the audit itself is disclosed in the Net position section (MD&A summary table rounds the primary-government total to $111,008 thousand vs. the Statement of Net Position total of $111,009,752 used here).
• What is missing / left out: this page has no current-year budget, no FY2024–FY2026 actuals, and no population, staffing, or service-level figures — the FY2023 audit does not supply them in a form used here, and none were invented. Per-fund expenditure detail beyond the General Fund is not shown because the scan's column alignment for that statement is noisy; only fund revenues, ending balances, and the audited totals — all of which sum-check — are shown. A General Fund public-safety sub-breakdown is likewise omitted: the scan's small Whitworth/E911 lines do not reconcile against the audited $8,142,014 public-safety total, so only that audited total is used. The discretely presented component units (Library, Health Department) are excluded from primary-government totals by design, as the audit presents them separately.
• Scope: this is the Hart County government dashboard (seat Hartwell). The City of Hartwell is a separate government and is not covered here.
• County palette: no high- or medium-confidence Hart County palette was on file, so this page uses the neutral Peach State Pulse dark-glass theme rather than a county color.

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