Auditor General Tells House Subcommittee 2024 financials were ultimately accurate but flagged major reporting gaps and compliance problems

At the first meeting of the House Committee on Oversight Subcommittee on Government Efficiency on April 3, 2025 in Room 135 of the State House, Rhode Island Auditor General David Bergantino presented the office’s 2024 financial audit, the state single audit and related performance and municipal oversight work and urged the legislature to follow up on recurring control and reporting problems.

Bergantino told members the state’s 2024 financial statements received an unmodified (clean) opinion from his office but that auditors found significant errors and internal-control weaknesses during the audit process that required numerous adjustments before the final statements were issued. "The good news is it did result in an unmodified audit opinion," Bergantino said, but he warned the draft financials contained material misstatements that had to be corrected.

The audit team identified 28 findings across the state reporting entity, many tied to internal-control and reporting weaknesses, Bergantino said. Notable adjustments and errors he cited included about $83.6 million in general-fund audit adjustments; an approximately $10.4 million adjustment to the Intermodal Surface Transportation (ICT) fund’s operating results; and the omission from the draft statements of about $93 million in state debt related to Central Falls’ new high school. He described many of those issues as coordination…