JACKSON—April 27, 2017—State Auditor Stacey Pickering released the annual statewide Single Audit of Mississippi for Fiscal Year 2016, which ended June 30, 2016. The audit was conducted in accordance with the requirements of the Single Audit Act Amendments of 1996, the provisions of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Uniform Administrative Requirements, Cost Principles, and Audit Requirements for Federal Awards (contained in Title 2 of the U.S. code of Federal Regulations Part 200), and the State of Mississippi’s audit requirements.

The Single Audit is due to the Federal Office of Management and Budget by March 31, but is late for the second year in a row. “The Department of Finance and Administration (DFA) was forced to request multiple extensions for the Single Audit and the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) because some agencies were not well prepared due to the inability of State Agencies to provide the required information on time to both DFA and my office,” said Auditor Pickering.

This is the first year since the inception of the Single Audit Act was enacted in 1996 that the Office of the State Auditor has issued an adverse opinion on a federal program. “Combined with the multiple adjustments required by DFA and my office for the CAFR, it marks the most problematic statewide reports filed by my office in recent history,” Pickering said.
Additionally, OSA issued an unmodified opinion on those financials, but that in order to do so, multiple significant adjustments to the financial reports submitted by state agencies were required. “I would encourage everyone to review the audit findings issued by my office and our partnering CPA firms,” said Pickering. “These findings acknowledge weaknesses existing in our state agencies that should be addressed by management and those charged with governance.”

Mississippi’s Comprehensive Annual Financial Report for fiscal year 2016 and our report thereon are available electronically at http://www.dfa.state.ms.us/

In addition to the listing of the CAFR report on the DFA website, both the CAFR and the Single Audit are available on the OSA website at the following links:

Links:
CAFR
http://www.osa.ms.gov/documents/agencies/2016cafr.pdf

Single Audit
http://www.osa.ms.gov/documents/single-audit/16sar.pdf