Attestation Update – A&A for CPAs

The Office of State Auditor (OSA) has issued several official reports on the fabricated June 30, 2011 financial statements from the New Mexico Finance Authority. You can find two of the reports here and here.

This is the second in a series of posts on the reports.  Previous post is here.

Report conclusion

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The New Mexico Office of State Auditor (OSA) has issued several official reports on the fabricated June 30, 2011 financial statements from the New Mexico Finance Authority.

This will be the first in a series of posts on the report.

You can find a 47 page report dated December 3, 2012 here.  You can find a more detailed 174 page report dated December 12, 2012 here.

The longer report has a very helpful 10 page executive summary. If you are a CPA interested in learning about fraud, systemic failures of internal control, the importance of tone at the top, and all the other things that we CPAs look at, you will learn a lot by reading the executive summary.

Good news from the investigation

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The former controller of the New Mexico Finance Authority pled guilty to three felony counts on November 29, 2012. There were two forgery charges and one for securities fraud.

He was sentenced to five years probation.  The sentence includes the provision for a conditional discharge.

A special report from the Office of State Auditor dated December 12, 2012 stated:

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Just checked back with New Mexico Watchdog to see what is happening with the alleged fake audit report for the New Mexico Finance Authority. My background is here and here.  An update:

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The mess involving a faked audit report in New Mexico is growing. The former controller wasn’t acting alone and the faked audit report isn’t the only issue.

The controller has been arrested for alleged securities fraud. It is now alleged that the former controller coordinated with the Chief Operating Officer (COO) in misstating the financial statements. The COO has also been arrested.

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If you are an auditor, you really ought to be watching the story unfolding in New Mexico about the allegedly faked 6-30-11 financials for the New Mexico Finance Authority. Is it okay to drop the alleged when the person submitting the report said it isn’t the real audit report? My previous posts here and here.

If you want an evaluation of the quality of the forgery, you can check out Jim Scarantino’s post on July 19:  The Cheap Forgery That May Cost New Mexico Millions. He has an extended discussion of the report.  He’s talking photocopies and whiteout.

One more thing to watch for is the idea of photocopies being present when originals are expected. Look at the visual quality of the accountant’s reports. Typically those would be printed originals, if not electronically generated. In the copy on the web site, the accountant’s reports appear to be a second or third generation copy. The pages in the basic financials are not as ‘dirty’ as the opinion. That should be odd to an auditor’s eyes.

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The New Mexico State Auditor claims audited financial statements for the New Mexico Finance Authority were fabricated in their entirety. I mentioned this in my previous post, Faked audit report in New Mexico.

This has been the cause of an uproar in Santa Fe and Albuquerque, as you can imagine.  The local news station, KOB 4, found the controller allegedly behind the fiasco at his home on Friday. They spoke to him before the investigators did.  You can read KOB’s  report at NMFA Comptroller on bogus audit: Not malicious.

His explanation at the moment is that he prepared a draft report for the audit. This would be fine up to a point. The concept is that the client ought to prepare the financial information, including all necessary notes. Even the single audit schedules ought to be prepared by the auditee.

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Wow. Check out the report in the Albuquerque Journal – State finance authority audit faked, officials say.  The New Mexico Finance Authority issues bonds to raise funds and then loans the money to public entities.

The state auditor says the audited financial statements for the agency’s year ended June 30, 2011 were fabricated. From the Journal’s article:

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