CT Paid Leave Authority gets unmodified audit opinion for FY2025; auditors flag upcoming GASB changes

Auditors told the CT Paid Leave Authority on a morning call that they issued an unmodified (clean) opinion on the authority’s fiscal year 2025 financial statements and found no compliance findings, significant deficiencies or material weaknesses in internal controls.

"We've issued an unmodified opinion on the financial statements," Tom, the lead auditor, said during the presentation, adding that the audit met government auditing standards for a quasi‑public entity. The audit team also reported no findings from an IT control specialist review.

The auditors identified several significant estimates that received extra scrutiny: the allowance for uncollectible receivables, the reserve for benefit claims, net pension liabilities and the net OPEB liability. Katrina, who led the substantive testing, described the procedures used to evaluate assumptions and actuary inputs. "The most significant estimate in the financial statements is the allowance for uncollectible receivables, reserves for bad for benefit claims, the net pension liabilities, and the net OPEB liability," she said.

Katrina presented key figures used in audit analyses: participant contributions for fiscal 2025 totaled $479,000,000 (a 3% increase year over year), contributions receivable were $127,000,000 (about three months of revenue), total benefit claims paid were $451,000,000 (a 17% increase year over year) and the benefit‑claim reserve was $60,900,000. She said the increase in benefit claims is consistent with greater public awareness and outreach activity.

The auditors described two accounting standards implemented during FY2025 (described in the presentation as GASB 101 and GASB 102) as primarily disclosure changes and said they do not materially affect the statement amounts. They warned the authority to prepare for two additional GASB standards that take effect in FY2026 (referred to in the presentation as GASB 103 and GASB 104), which will affect the presentation of the management discussion and analysis and require more detailed capital asset footnote disclosures.

Board members thanked the audit team and staff for the clean outcome. Tom said the audit work was largely performed remotely and that the audit team would present the financial statements again at a forthcoming full‑board session.

What happens next: the authority’s audited financial statements and related disclosures will be presented to the full board as planned; the auditors recommended beginning preparations for the FY2026 GASB presentation changes.