State audit office reports staffing gains, warns municipalities still fall short on basic bookkeeping

At a Joint Committee on Public Accounts meeting, a state audit office official said the office has rebuilt staff levels and increased audit output but warned that many municipalities and local entities still lack basic bookkeeping and accounting capacity, hampering audits and compliance work.

The official told the committee the office’s examiner ranks fell from 229 in February 2008 to 121 in February 2018, and that the office has since hired to meet a revised staffing need (about 60 additional examiners compared with 2008 levels). The official said the office created a new class of compliance examiners — hired about 15–20 people without traditional accounting degrees — and that audits are increasing, with an estimated 1,200 audit years expected to be released this year and roughly 1,100 entities under the…