Developing And Presenting Findings in OMB Circular A-133 Audits: A Briefing for Independent Auditors

The current level of attention on the importance of audits performed under OMB Circular A-133 is unprecedented. These audits have had a longstanding role in assuring accountability for federal grants and subgrants. But now, under the Obama Administration’s Stimulus program, they are being viewed as perhaps the key tool for oversight of the massive expenditures being made with those funds. And that development is occurring against a backdrop of continuing concern about the quality of those audits.

Recently, the federal inspectors general released a troublesome report that showed that a large percentage of A-133 audits from a valid statistical sample of all those performed during a particular year were substandard. The deficiencies were wide ranging but one of the most prevalent was poorly developed or incomplete audit findings. Because audit report users (also known as federal awarding agencies and pass-through entities) are required to review those findings in a timely way and to resolve them through decisions to disallow costs, make financial adjustments, or require other corrective actions, the findings are central to the audit report and receive a lot of scrutiny. And grant recipients and subrecipients are just as concerned about their thoroughness and accuracy. That’s because they worry about the impact of any reported audit findings on their future funding. So, independent auditors need to make sure they are developing and presenting audit findings in a constructive manner that also meets applicable auditing standards.

This audio conference will help those practitioners by providing a unique perspective on audit findings from a presentation team that brings decades of experience dealing with audits of federal grants. Sefton Boyars is a former assistant federal inspector with the perspective of someone who has issued grant audit reports with findings that had to be made to stick. On the other hand, Bob Lloyd has worked both in and with the grantee community, often successfully challenging the validity of audit findings because of shoddy audit work, incorrect interpretation of requirements, or mitigating facts and circumstances.

Learning Points:

• The information that government program officials expect to see in audit findings
• Sources of guidance contained in government and industry audit standards and in Circular A-133 itself;
• Details on the multiple required attributes of an audit finding;
• The types of criteria against which current conditions are to be compared;
• Common mistakes that auditors make in presenting audit findings;
• Dealing with disagreements that arise when auditee management expresses its views on findings.

Who Should Attend:

• Anyone who performs Circular A-133 field work, reporting, or quality review including:
• Independent Auditors from:
  • Public Accounting Firms
  • State and Local Government Audit Organizations
  • Federal Offices of Inspectors General
• Internal Auditors
• Financial management staff members from organizations that must arrange for conduct of OMB Circular A-133 audits may also find this conference useful.

Robert Lloyd

Robert M. Lloyd is a respected authority on policies affecting the acquisition, administration and audit of federal grants and contracts. The former executive director of the Grants Management Advisory Service, Mr. Lloyd has more than 35 years of experience in federal award implementation and oversight. After extensive work with two large federally funded organizations and a national firm, he formed his own management consulting practice in Washington, DC, in 1982. Since then, he has been a trainer, consultant and advisor to management and audit units in fifteen major federal grant making agencies and with grantee, subgrantees and independent audit organizations located in all fifty states, the District of Columbia and 17 foreign countries. In addition, he has served recipient and independent audit organizations located throughout the United States and eight foreign countries. Among his diverse clients are governmental units, colleges and universities, nonprofit organizations, associations and professional and commercial firms.

Sefton Boyars
Until his retirement in October 1996, Mr. Boyars had been the Department of Education's Regional Inspector General for Audit in Regions IX and X for sixteen years. During his 35-year career, Mr. Boyars worked for a variety of federal government audit agencies and a California county. Mr. Boyars is active in his profession. He is a member of the California CPA Society and was a long-time Chair of his chapter's combined committee on Accounting Principles and Auditing Standards and Government Accounting and Auditing. He served on the Qualifications Committee of the California State Board of Accountancy for three years. Mr. Boyars is a Certified Public Accountant, a Certified Government Financial Manager, a Certified Fraud Specialist and a Certified Internal Auditor. He is a past Chair of the Western Intergovernmental Audit Forum and often served as chair or co-chair of its subcommittees and roundtables. Mr. Boyars is a past President of the San Francisco chapter of the Association of Government Accountants (AGA). He is an experienced trainer and has taught for numerous organizations, including federal, state and local governments, professional associations (such as the Association of Government Accountants, the Institute of Internal Auditors and state CPA societies), the USDA Graduate School and Management Concepts, Incorporated. He received AGA's National Education and Training Award for 1998. Mr. Boyars authored AGA's revised study guide for Course 3 of the Certified Government Financial Manager: Governmental Financial Management and Control. The study guide was issued in the summer of 2008.