City of Blue Ridge, Georgia

Overview

Blue Ridge's auditor, Welch, Walker and Associates, CPA's, issued an unmodified opinion: the FY2023 financial statements present fairly, in all material respects, the City's financial position as of December 31, 2023. One qualification to the reporting package itself: management omitted the Management's Discussion and Analysis that accounting standards require as supplementary information — the auditor's opinion on the basic statements is not affected, but this page therefore has no MD&A narrative to draw on.

In FY2023 the City as a whole added $3,674,862 to its net position: governmental activities by $3,597,020 and business-type activities (Water & Sewer) by $77,842. The governmental increase includes a $494,368 special item — the dissolution of the Downtown Development Authority, whose balances came into the General Fund. The General Fund itself grew in FY2023, unlike a drawdown year: see the General Fund section below.

Source: City of Blue Ridge FY2023 Annual Financial Report, Independent Auditor's Report and Statement of Activities reconciliation — audited FY2023 report (PDF).

At a glance — FY2023 audited

Source: FY2023 audit, Statement of Net Position and fund statements — audited FY2023 report (PDF).

Net position — December 31, 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 (sums to the $2,244,793 above): capital projects $1,735,210 (governmental), debt service $366,019 (business-type), public safety $5,531 (governmental), housing and economic development $138,033 (governmental).

Change in net position in FY2023: governmental $3,597,020 + business-type $77,842 = $3,674,862. Beginning total net position $24,183,094 + $3,674,862 = $27,857,956, matching the ending total above.

Source: Statement of Net Position, p. 3, and reconciliation of governmental fund balances to net position, p. 6 — audited FY2023 report (PDF).

General Fund — FY2023 actuals vs. final budget

The General Fund is the City's chief operating fund. It took in $4,354,558 against a final budget of $3,656,150 ($698,408 over), and spent $4,024,986 against a final budget of $4,887,708 ($862,722 under). Revenues covered expenditures, so the fund balance grew even before the Downtown Development Authority special item.

Revenues — $4,354,558

Expenditures — $4,024,986

Fund balance walk

That ending balance is unassigned in the General Fund column of the balance sheet ($3,786,510 unassigned, plus $38,072 nonspendable prepaid items = $3,824,582).

Source: General Fund Statement of Revenues, Expenditures, and Changes in Fund Balances — Budget and Actual, p. 9, and Governmental Funds statement, p. 7 — audited FY2023 report (PDF).

All governmental funds — FY2023

Beyond the General Fund, the City reports the SPLOST capital-projects fund, the Hotel Motel Tax Fund (8% lodging tax), and nonmajor governmental funds (including Confiscated Assets and American Rescue Plan Act funds). Every row below sums across to its total.

Combined, the governmental funds took in $757,839 more than they spent in FY2023 ($6,017,323 − $5,259,484), plus $17,063 of other financing sources and the $494,368 Downtown Development Authority special item, for a net fund-balance increase of $1,269,270 — from $5,340,230 to $6,609,500. The SPLOST fund's $795,219 of revenue is intergovernmental revenue $744,829 + investment earnings $45,990 + restitution $4,400. The Hotel Motel Tax Fund took in $864,625 of hotel/motel taxes and spent $638,057 on housing and economic development, growing from $822,009 to $1,048,577.

Source: Governmental Funds Statement of Revenues, Expenditures, and Changes in Fund Balances, p. 7 — audited FY2023 report (PDF).

Water & Sewer enterprise — FY2023

The Water and Sewer Fund is the City's business-type activity. It earned an operating profit, then gave most of it back in net nonoperating expense (mainly bond interest), for a small overall increase in net position.

Operating revenues — $4,269,098

Operating expenses — $3,186,612

Operating income before depreciation: $4,269,098 − $3,186,612 = $1,082,486. Less depreciation $899,444 and amortization $5,263 = operating income $177,779. Nonoperating items were a net expense of $99,937 (principal forgiveness $7,198 + interest income $48,621 + surcharge revenue $195,433 − interest on leases $25 − interest on revenue bonds $315,896 − interest on notes $35,268), producing a $77,842 increase in net position — from $13,161,030 to $13,238,872.

Source: Proprietary Fund Statement of Revenues, Expenses, and Changes in Fund Net Position, p. 12 — audited FY2023 report (PDF).

Debt & capital assets

Governmental capital assets of $8,081,558 are nondepreciable $2,717,708 + depreciable, net $5,353,511 + right-to-use leased assets, net $10,339. Business-type capital assets of $23,821,454 are nondepreciable $1,849,998 + depreciable, net $21,949,205 + right-to-use leased assets, net $22,251. Net pension liabilities ($566,646 governmental, $422,984 business-type) are obligations but are not counted in the debt total above.

Source: Statement of Net Position, p. 3, and Proprietary Fund Statement of Fund Net Position, p. 11 — audited FY2023 report (PDF).

Livability Index — Fannin County (county-level)

Peach State Pulse composite · Not an official rating

This dashboard covers the City of Blue Ridge; the index below is the county-level index for Fannin County, shown as county-level data.

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 Fannin 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 · County-level data for Fannin County

• Georgia Mountains Health Services, Inc. — Healthcare · Blue Ridge
  Source: Georgia Department of Labor
• Heritage Healthcare Of Blue Ridge, LLC — Healthcare · Blue Ridge
  Source: Georgia Department of Labor
• Walmart — Retail
  Source: Georgia Department of Labor
• The Home Depot — Retail
  Source: Georgia Department of Labor
• Mason Tractor & Equipment, Inc. — Retail
  Source: Georgia Department of Labor

Colleges

IPEDS 2024–25 · Display only — not part of the index · County-level data for Fannin County

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 · County-level data for Fannin County

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

Weather — Blue Ridge, Georgia

Live National Weather Service forecast · County seat

Longer-range outlooks: NOAA Climate Prediction Center 8–14 day outlooks. Forecast point: Blue Ridge city coordinates (geocoded city match): 34.85931, -84.3286. 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: City of Blue Ridge, Georgia, Annual Financial Report for the year ended December 31, 2023 (audited; Welch, Walker and Associates, CPA's; auditor's report dated November 13, 2025). 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. No FY2024, FY2025, or FY2026 figure appears on this page, and nothing here should be read as the City's current financial position.
• Not used: no other document. No figure on this page comes from any budget, later audit, or estimate.
• Sum checks: every breakdown table on this page was added up before publishing; each shown total equals the sum of its shown parts, including the General Fund final-budget comparison (revenues $3,656,150, expenditures $4,887,708) and the fund-balance walks.
• What is missing: this page has no current-year budget, no FY2024 or later actuals, no Management's Discussion and Analysis (management omitted it from the audit package), and no population, staffing, or service-level figures — the FY2023 audit does not supply them in a form used here, and none were invented. A newer verified document would be needed to update this dashboard.
• City palette: no high- or medium-confidence City of Blue Ridge palette was on file, so this page uses the neutral Peach State Pulse dark-glass theme rather than a city color.

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