The Grafton Township Board did not select the low bidder to perform its audit last year. It picked Eder, Casella & Company out of McHenry.

The firm’s transmittal letter has some pretty stiff comments, which I’ll outline below.

On top, however, is a place for a sign-off on its contents.

Here’s what the person signing the document agrees to:
“I(We) have examined the attached draft and find it to be correct.”

If I were the new township supervisor, having beaten John Rossi and criticized his handling of township finances, you wouldn’t get my signature.

The letter is addressed to the Board of Trustees, so many one or more of the trustees will see fit to affix his or her John Hancock.

If would like my agreeing my predecessor as McHenry County Treasurer in 1966 had done everything right. (She may have. I thought enough of Audrey Walgenbach to keep her on as my chief deputy, but, how would an incoming elected official know what had happened the year before?)

In any event, when the audit came in 1967, I didn’t have to vouch for the auditor’s having been correct.

Right in the first paragraph is this startling statement:

“Accordingly, we do not express an opinion on the effectiveness of the Township’s internal control.”

Whoa!

The firm says its audit was not designed for that purpose. Even though “we considered its internal control over financial reporting (internal control) as a basis for designing our auditing procedures for the purpose of expressing our opinions on the financial statements.”

The justification?

“Auditing standards generally accepted in the United States of America.”

The examination performed on those internal controls “would not necessarily identify all deficiencies in internal control that might be significant deficiencies or material weaknesses. However, we identified certain deficiencies in internal control that we consider to be material weaknesses.”

Everything clear?

So, what’s a “control deficiency?”

They exist “when the design or operation of a control does not allow management or employees…to prevent or detect misstatements on a timely basis.”

To be continued.