Announcements

The Office of the Washington State Auditor has passed its external peer review, a rigorous independent examination of the Office's quality control system and audit work conducted every three years.

“We have high standards for accountability and transparency in Washington, and our Office works to uphold those expectations, including in our own operations,” State Auditor Pat McCarthy said. “We welcome this examination and are pleased to have met the high standards of this national group.”

OLYMPIA – Today the Office of the Washington State Auditor released two first-of-their-kind audits related to law enforcement officers' use of deadly force. The reports compare the investigations of such incidents to state rules and professional best practices.

Sadie Armijo, SAO's Director of State Audit and Special Investigations, received the 2022 Award of Excellence at the Washington Finance Officers Association conference in Tacoma.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Sept. 20, 2022

OLYMPIA – Today the Office of the Washington State Auditor released a fraud report and audit of Mason County Fire District No. 12, showing almost $70,000 in misappropriated public funds, as well as $95,000 in unsupported expenses.

Auditors also documented an overall disregard for state laws at the District in areas including ethics and conflicts of interest, open public meetings and financial transparency.

When your government becomes aware of a known or suspected loss of public funds, state law requires that you immediately report it to the State Auditor's Office. The most effective way to report is through the “How to Report a Concern” page on SAO's website.

WSCPA President and CEO, Kimberly Scott (left), presenting Director of Local Audit Kelly Collins, CPA, CFE (right) with the 2021-2022 Outstanding Leader award.

For the first time in three years, the annual Washington Finance Officers Association conference will be live and in person Tuesday, Sept. 13 through Friday, Sept. 16 at the Greater Tacoma Convention Center. As always, the WFOA conference is a unique, once-a-year opportunity to attend valuable training sessions, find out about the latest and greatest auditing and accounting resources, and share tips and advice with financial experts and your colleagues.

For planning and budgeting purposes, we recently notified our clients that SAO's hourly billing rates as of Jan. 1, 2023, will be as follows:

The hourly rate for auditors in travel status will remain at 75 percent of the applicable hourly rate.

Earlier this summer we announced SAO would be phasing in SecureShare, our new data-sharing tool for audits. Starting Sept. 1, SecureShare will be our primary tool for exchanging audit information with state and local governments.

As part of our transition, we are in the process of emailing clients with invitations to join their dedicated share space in SecureShare. The invitation email will be from SAOSecureShare [at] sao [dot] wa [dot] gov. Please add this email address to your organization's “safe sender” list to ensure you receive it.

The Office of the Washington State Auditor is excited to announce the addition of school district financial data to our Financial Intelligence Tool (FIT). Before we make this data available to the public, we are inviting school districts to preview their data and become familiar with how to use the tool.