Financial Audit: Office of the Secretary of the Senate for the Fiscal
Year Ended September 30, 1994 (Letter Report, 07/11/95, GAO/AIMD-95-185).
GAO audited the statement of disbursements, receipts, and financing
sources for the Secretary of the Senate for the fiscal year ended
September 30, 1994. The Secretary employs about 240 staff and performs
legislative and administrative duties for the Senate, including
maintaining permanent records of Senate proceedings and administering
the Senate disbursing office, library, and stationery store. GAO found
that the financial statement was reliable in all material respects, that
management fairly stated that its internal controls effectively
safeguarded assets from material loss, ensuring material compliance with
laws and regulations and ensuring that there were no material
misstatements in the financial statement; and there was no reportable
noncompliance with laws and regulations.
--------------------------- Indexing Terms -----------------------------
REPORTNUM: AIMD-95-185
TITLE: Financial Audit: Office of the Secretary of the Senate for
the Fiscal Year Ended September 30, 1994
DATE: 07/11/95
SUBJECT: Financial statement audits
Compliance
Internal controls
Legislative bodies
Cash basis accounting
Accounting procedures
Auditing standards
Accountability
Financial records
**************************************************************************
* This file contains an ASCII representation of the text of a GAO *
* report. Delineations within the text indicating chapter titles, *
* headings, and bullets are preserved. Major divisions and subdivisions *
* of the text, such as Chapters, Sections, and Appendixes, are *
* identified by double and single lines. The numbers on the right end *
* of these lines indicate the position of each of the subsections in the *
* document outline. These numbers do NOT correspond with the page *
* numbers of the printed product. *
* *
* No attempt has been made to display graphic images, although figure *
* captions are reproduced. Tables are included, but may not resemble *
* those in the printed version. *
* *
* A printed copy of this report may be obtained from the GAO Document *
* Distribution Facility by calling (202) 512-6000, by faxing your *
* request to (301) 258-4066, or by writing to P.O. Box 6015, *
* Gaithersburg, MD 20884-6015. We are unable to accept electronic orders *
* for printed documents at this time. *
**************************************************************************
Cover
================================================================ COVER
Report to the Majority and Minority Leaders, U.S. Senate
July 1995
FINANCIAL AUDIT - OFFICE OF THE
SECRETARY OF THE SENATE FOR THE
FISCAL YEAR ENDED SEPTEMBER 30,
1994
GAO/AIMD-95-185
Secretary of the Senate
Abbreviations
=============================================================== ABBREV
Letter
=============================================================== LETTER
B-261519
July 12, 1995
The Honorable Bob Dole
Majority Leader
United States Senate
The Honorable Thomas A. Daschle
Minority Leader
United States Senate
As you requested, we audited the accompanying Statement of
Disbursements, Receipts, and Financing Sources for the Office of the
Secretary of the Senate (the Secretary) for the fiscal year ended
September 30, 1994. The financial statement represents the operating
costs of the Secretary. The Secretary employs approximately 240
staff and is responsible for a number of legislative and
administrative functions for the Senate, including overseeing and
maintaining permanent records of the Senate Chamber proceedings and
administering the Senate Disbursing Office, the Senate Library, and
the Senate Stationery Store.
As a result of our audit, we found
the financial statement was reliable in all material respects;
management fairly stated that internal controls in place on
September 30, 1994, were effective in safeguarding assets from
material loss, assuring material compliance with relevant laws
and regulations, and assuring that there were no material
misstatements in the financial statement; and
no reportable noncompliance with laws and regulations we tested.
The following sections outline each conclusion in more detail and
discuss the scope of our audit.
OPINION ON THE STATEMENT OF
DISBURSEMENTS, RECEIPTS, AND
FINANCING SOURCES
------------------------------------------------------------ Letter :1
The financial statement and accompanying notes were prepared on a
cash basis, which is a comprehensive basis of accounting that differs
from generally accepted accounting principles. The statement
presents fairly, in conformity with the cash basis of accounting
described in note 1, the Secretary's disbursements, receipts, and
financing sources.
OPINION ON MANAGEMENT'S
ASSERTION ABOUT THE
EFFECTIVENESS OF INTERNAL
CONTROLS
------------------------------------------------------------ Letter :2
We evaluated management's assertion about the effectiveness of its
internal controls designed to
safeguard assets against loss from unauthorized acquisition, use,
or disposition;
assure the execution of transactions in accordance with laws and
regulations that have a direct and material effect on the
financial statement; and
record, process, and summarize transactions properly to permit the
preparation of reliable financial statements and to maintain
accountability for assets.
Management of the Office of the Secretary fairly stated that those
controls in place on September 30, 1994, provided reasonable
assurance that losses, noncompliance, or misstatements material in
relation to the financial statement would be prevented or detected on
a timely basis. Management made this assertion based upon criteria
established under the Comptroller General's Standards For Internal
Controls In The Federal Government for safeguarding of assets against
unauthorized acquisition, use, or disposition; compliance with laws
and regulations; and financial reporting controls.
COMPLIANCE WITH LAWS AND
REGULATIONS
------------------------------------------------------------ Letter :3
Our audit tests for compliance with selected provisions of laws and
regulations disclosed no instances of noncompliance that would be
reportable under generally accepted government auditing standards.
OBJECTIVES, SCOPE, AND
METHODOLOGY
------------------------------------------------------------ Letter :4
Management is responsible for
preparing the financial statement in conformity with the basis of
accounting described in note 1;
establishing, maintaining, and assessing the internal control
structure to provide reasonable assurance that the internal
control objectives outlined above are met; and
complying with applicable laws and regulations.
We are responsible for obtaining reasonable assurance about whether
(1) the financial statement is reliable, that is, free of material
misstatement and presented fairly in conformity with the basis of
accounting described in note 1 and (2) management's assertion about
the effectiveness of internal controls is fairly stated in all
material respects based upon criteria established under the
Comptroller General's Standards For Internal Controls In The Federal
Government for safeguarding of assets against unauthorized
acquisition, use, or disposition; compliance with laws and
regulations; and financial reporting controls. We are also
responsible for testing compliance with selected provisions of laws
and regulations.
In order to fulfill these responsibilities, we
examined, on a test basis, evidence supporting the amounts and
disclosures in the financial statement;
assessed the accounting principles used by management;
evaluated the overall presentation of the financial statement;
obtained an understanding of the internal control structure related
to safeguarding assets, compliance with laws and regulations,
including execution of transactions in accordance with budget
authority and financial reporting;
tested relevant internal controls over safeguarding, compliance,
and financial reporting and evaluated management's assertion
about the effectiveness of internal controls; and
tested compliance with selected provisions of specific laws and
regulations including provisions of
the Legislative Branch Appropriations Act for fiscal years 1994 and
1995 (Public Laws 103-69 and 103-283, respectively);
the Antideficiency Act (31 U.S.C. 1341 and 1350);
laws and implementing Office of Personnel Management regulations on
employee benefits and employer costs (5 U.S.C. 8334, 8422, 8423,
8432, 8707, 8708, 8714, 8714a, 8714b, 8714c, 8906, 5 CFR 831.102, and
890.501);
laws and implementing Internal Revenue Service regulations on federal
income and social security tax withholding (26 U.S.C. 3102, 3111,
and 3402); and
laws establishing rates of pay for officers and employees of the
Office of the Secretary of the Senate (2 U.S.C. 60c-1, 60c-3, 61,
61-1).
We did not evaluate all internal controls relevant to operating
objectives, such as ensuring efficient operations. We limited our
internal control testing to accounting and other controls necessary
to achieve the objectives outlined in our opinion on management's
assertion about the effectiveness of internal controls. Because of
inherent limitations in any internal control structure, losses,
noncompliance, or misstatements may nevertheless occur and not be
detected. We also caution that projecting our evaluation to future
periods is subject to the risk that controls may become inadequate
because of changes in conditions or that the degree of compliance
with controls may deteriorate.
We performed our audit in accordance with generally accepted
government auditing standards. We completed our audit work on June
30, 1995.
Charles A. Bowsher
Comptroller General
of the United States
FINANCIAL STATEMENT
=========================================================== Appendix 0
Statement of Disbursements,
Receipts, and Financing Sources
(See figure in printed
edition.)
Notes to the Financial
Statement
(See figure in printed
edition.)
(See figure in printed
edition.)