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PERS auditors issue clean opinion; staff plans to double employer audits
Summary
External auditors reported unmodified (clean) opinions on PERS financial reports and no internal control findings. Director Higgins told the audit committee the agency will "double" employer‑audit efforts next year with a goal of auditing about 20% of employers on a five‑year cycle.
The Public Employees Retirement System of Mississippi received clean audit reports and no internal control findings, and staff said it will expand employer audit work next year.
At the audit committee meeting, Director Higgins described the agency's employer‑audit function and said it is performed primarily by two outside CPA firms and a contracted internal audit provider. "We are going to basically try to double our efforts on the employer audit function and add some additional resources and get to where we can touch roughly 20% of our employers and touch each employer every 5 years," Director Higgins said.
Brad Burrows, partner at audit firm I, Bailey, told the committee the firm issued unmodified opinions and found no matters rising to the level of internal control findings. "We did have unmodified opinions — so it's a clean report," Burrows said, adding the firm performs specific procedures for hard‑to‑price alternative investments and reviews actuarial assumptions for net pension liability calculations.
Burrows outlined the audit procedures the firm follows for alternative investments and the system's net pension liability and said two reports (GASB 68‑related items and an examination report for certain plans) remained open but were expected to wrap up shortly. He also stressed confidentiality protocols when using specialist pricing services.
The committee voted to accept the annual comprehensive financial report. The vote was taken by voice; the chair announced the ayes carried.
Why it matters: expanding employer audits is aimed at improving the accuracy of payroll, contribution and demographic reporting that feed into actuarial valuations and GASB disclosures. Staff said employer audits will continue to be done on a sample basis and that significant or systemic errors would be escalated to management for remediation.
Next steps: staff will implement the expanded audit plan and return with updates. The external auditors will complete remaining reports related to GASB 68 and the municipal plan examination.
