City received first dividend check from consolidated CNS

Some naysayers never thought this day would come, but the City of Cairo recently received a dividend check from the South Georgia Governmental Services Authority for the operations of the consolidated CNS Cable & Internet service.
Last year, the city council sold its assets in CNS to the SGGSA, which continues to operate the multi-city cable service.
The city’s first dividend check was for $78,611.50.
“Hopefully, we will get a payout on a regular basis. This is the first one we’ve gotten. So that’s good news and we hope there are more to come,” Cairo City Manager Chris Addleton said Monday.
When the council received approximately $3.4 million last year from the sale of its CNS assets, the council reserved those funds in a restricted account to go toward the construction of the new Cairo Police Department headquarters.
The council did not designate how the dividend payment would be spent.
In related news, Council finance committee chairman, Councilman James H. (Jimmy) Douglas, expressed his concern that city auditor Tom Carmichael of Carr Riggs & Ingram issued the city’s audited financial statement to state officials before the city council gave final approval to the audit. Douglas noted a number of corrections he had requested, some of which were corrected while others were not before the audit was transmitted to the state.
The city also had to argue with the auditors over the financial reporting regarding the sale of its CNS assets. Ultimately, the auditors agreed to recognize CNS as a viable enterprise and Addleton said the recent dividend check backs up that claim.