Audit 378348

2025-001 - Weakness regarding preparing financial statements (design deficiency) Criteria: Effective internal control over financial reporting involves the identification and analysis of the risks of material misstatement to the company’s audited financial statements and should determine how those identified risks should are managed. Condition: Management has not designed effective controls over the preparation of the financial statements and certain year end journal entries to prevent or detect material misstatements, including footnote disclosures. Management relies on the auditor firm to make certain year end adjustments and to properly prepare the financial statements and related footnote disclosures. If the audit firm did not properly propose the journal entries and prepare the financial statements and related footnote disclosures, the Housing Authority may not identify the error in advance of issuance. Context: The audit firm has been preparing certain year end journal entries and the financial statements and related footnote disclosures for several years. Each year the auditee reviews and approves the journal entries and a draft of the financial statements prior to issuance. Effect: The auditee relies on the auditor firm to make certain year end adjustments and to properly prepare the financial statements and related footnote disclosures. If the audit firm did not properly propose the journal entries and prepare the financial statements and related footnote disclosures, the Housing Authority may not identify the error in advance of issuance. Cause: Due to the limited number of personnel and their financial reporting expertise, management has elected to rely on the audit firm to make certain year end adjustments and prepare its financial statements and related footnote disclosures. Recommendation: It is not cost effective for the auditee to employ additional personnel solely for financial reporting purposes. Therefore, the auditee should use its current knowledge obtained from training seminars and trade associations to mitigate the situation. Views of responsible officials and planned corrective actions: Management acknowledges that they are not experts in financial reporting and cannot afford to hire additional personnel for this purpose. However, they have obtained a wealth of knowledge from training seminars and trade associations. They will continue to be alert to changes in financial reporting requirements to ensure that they are implemented by their auditor on a timely basis.

2025-002 - Segregation of Duties (design deficiency) Criteria: A good system of internal control provides for an adequate segregation of duties so that no one individual handles a transaction from its inception to completion. Condition: There is a lack of proper segregation of duties between the functions of record keeping, asset custody and authorization. Context: Due to the limited number of office personnel within the Housing Authority, segregation of the accounting functions necessary to ensure adequate internal accounting control is not possible. This is not unusual in operations the size of Housing Authority; however, the Housing Authority’s management should constantly be aware of this condition and realize that the concentration of duties and responsibilities in a limited number of individuals is not desirable from an accounting point of view. Effect: Inadequate segregation of duties could adversely affect the Housing Authority’s ability to detect misstatements in amounts that would be material in relation to the financial statements in a timely period by employees in the normal course of performing their assigned functions. Cause: The Housing Authority does not have the economic resources needed to hire additional qualified accounting staff in order to properly segregate duties. Recommendation: We recommend that the Housing Authority’s board and management be aware of the lack of segregation of duties of the accounting functions and, where possible, implement oversight procedures to ensure that the internal control policies and procedures are being implemented by staff to the extent possible. Views of responsible officials and planned corrective actions: The Housing Authority will continue to segregate duties whenever possible and implement oversight procedures to ensure that the internal control policies and procedures are being implemented by staff to the extent possible.

2025-003 - Preparation of Schedule of Federal Expenditures (design deficiency) applicable to CFDA #10.427. Criteria: Uniform Guidance requires that the Housing Authority "identify, in its accounts, all federal awards received and expended and the federal programs under which they were received. Federal program and award identification shall include, as applicable, the CFDA title and number, award number and year, name of the federal agency, and name of the pass-through entity. In addition, the Housing Authority is required to prepare appropriate financial statements, including the schedule of expenditures of federal awards expended. Condition: As is the case with many housing authorities, the Housing Authority administers several federal grants that include noncash principal and interest subsidies. The Housing Authority was unable to provide us with a schedule of federal expenditures that included the noncash principal and interest subsidies. Cause: The Housing Authority did not compute noncash principal and interest subsidies and record them in their general ledger. Effect: If the audit firm computes the principal and interest subsidies incorrectly, the wrong amount of assistance expended could be reported in error. Recommendation: We recommend that the Housing Authority assign an individual internally that is qualified to prepare this schedule. Management's Response: The Housing Authority agrees with this finding and will work to alleviate this issue.