Whitman County has received a clean audit report from the Washington State Auditor’s Office for its 2019 financial statements.
During a Zoom meeting with the county commissioners Monday, state auditors said they also found no deficiencies, material weaknesses or issues of noncompliance with the county’s 2019 federal grant awards.
“It’s a clean audit with no findings. Overall, this was just a great job for you guys,” said Matt Thompson, an assistant audit manager with the State Auditor’s Office.
Lead auditor Jonna Davis said the draft audit report did include one “adverse opinion,” noting that county finances are reported on a cash basis. Although cash accounting is permitted under state law — and is listed in the state auditor’s own accounting manual — it differs from generally accepted accounting procedures. Consequently, every local government entity that uses cash accounting receives the same adverse opinion, Davis said.
The draft report also recommends that the county update its procurement policies to specifically reflect federal procurement requirements, and noted there was a $234,340 understatement between the expected and actual total ending cash and investments.
The county said it would continue to try to resolve the difference, but felt it wasn’t material to the accuracy of the financial statements — a sentiment state auditors shared.
“There were no material mistakes,” Thompson said. “So even though you see a $234,000 error that we want corrected, that was no where near material to the county’s financial statements.”
The final version of the audit report should be available on the state auditor’s website next week.
Spence may be contacted at bspence@lmtribune.com or (208) 791-9168.
