State Letter Says City Failed to Submit Required Financial Audit

A letter to Mayor Erin Stewart (R) from the state appears to say the city of New Britain has been in, “Noncompliance with the Municipal and State Single Auditing Act,” because of, “Outstanding and Late FY 2022 Audit Reports.”

The letter to Stewart, from the state Office of Policy and Management, on September 12, 2023, says,

This letter of noncompliance is being sent on behalf of the Municipal Finance Advisory Commission (MFAC). Statutorily, the municipality’s June 30, 2022, audit report was to have been submitted to the Office of Policy and Management (OPM) by December 31, 2022, but remains outstanding as of the date of this letter. The City of New Britain is eligible for Tier I designation under Section 7-395d of the General Statutes from not having submitted its June 30, 2022 Financial and State Single Audit Reports within 12 months of its fiscal year end.

The letter goes on to say, “Audits must be completed in a timely manner for management of the municipality, the governing board, and its citizens to make informed decisions that can be critical to the municipality’s financial plan.”

The letter says that the state Municipal Finance Advisory Commission, “has not designated your municipality as a Tier I municipality for oversight,” by the state Commission, “However, the Commission is requesting the information below in order to assess the audit status of your municipality’s FY 2022 and 2023 audit reports.”

That information, which state requested by September 29, 2023, includes,

1. A summary description by line item of each significant reason why the FY 2022 audit was not filed by the December 31st due date and is still outstanding.

2. The remedial measures taken or planned to address the reasons for the late audit identified in item #1 above and to ensure that the reason does not recur for the FY 2023 audit report submission. If one of the reasons for the late audit was due to staffing shortages in the finance office, the municipality should provide an update on its finance office staffing levels including the remedial measures to correct the staffing shortage.

3. Provide the dates that the corrective measures were taken or is projected to be taken, including the individuals responsible for implementing.

4. A projected date for the submission of the FY 2022 audit report (financial and State Single Audit reports).

5. Your municipality’s General Fund FY 2021-22 budget to actual unaudited results for the twelve month period ended June 30, 2022. If the information is not available, please explain.

As of the publication of this article, on October 3, 2023, there was no audit report for budget year 2022 on the city website where other years’ audit reports are posted.

The New Britain Progressive has requested a copy of any information the city may have provided in response to the state’s request.

Update (10/4/2023): October 4th, Stewart told a community activist that, “We did reply to OPM and let them know that we are still working on the audit with our outside auditors. They accepted the notice and we are in touch as the audit continues on. We are in compliance right now with OPM’s requests.”

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