State & Local Reports

What Was Performed? A financial statement audit of the Delaware Agriculture Lands Preservation Foundation for the year ended June 30, 2020 was performed.Why This Report? This financial statement audit was performed in accordance with 29 Del. C. Section 2906 and 3 Del C. Sections 904(a)(8) and 904(a)(9).The Department of Agriculture manages Delaware’s Agricultural Lands (Aglands) Preservation Program. This program, established in 1991, allows landowners to voluntarily preserve their farms through a two-phase process. There are 490,000 acres in farms which comprise of 39% of State Land Area in Delaware.Delaware’s farmland preservation program has two major components – Agricultural Preservation Districts and Agricultural Conservation Easements.Preservation Districts are voluntary agreements where landowners agree to continue to only use their land only for agriculture for at least 10 years. Agricultural easements are purchases of development rights by the Foundation, placing a permanent agricultural conservation easement on the property. Landowners must enroll their farm into a Preservation District before they can sell an easement.

o contribute to the D.C. Department of Health’s (DC Health)2 efforts to inform the public of the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on District residents and the District’s efforts to contain the spread of the virus, the Office of the D.C. Auditor (ODCA) has compiled the following report, “The District’s COVID-19 Data Reporting is Strong but Opportunities Exist for Improvement and Increased Transparency.” The government’s dissemination of accurate, real-time data is essential to control the spread of COVID-19.

The purpose is to present fair and independent data which resulted to shine a light on cost savings that result from having volunteer fire services and to acknowledge the importance of volunteer firefighters in Delaware.State Auditor McGuiness presents recommendations on internal controls and fraud, waste and abuse information as part of the annual Delaware Volunteer Firefighters Association Conference. The conference was cancelled this year, because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Auditors Office distributed an internal control survey to each VFC instead, and those results and recommendations are included in this report to help VFCs reduce risk in key areas. We appreciate the spirit of cooperation embodied in those responses and hope the VFCs welcome the recommendations as an opportunity to further improve their internal controls.We previously conducted targeted investigations of specific entities where fraud, waste and abuse have occurred. These investigations found many internal control failures. In 2016, the Auditors Office was part of the 2016 Fire Task Force to help entities prevent future fraud by taking actions to improve their internal controls. The VFCs were provided with a comprehensive list of internal control best practices and oversight responsibility was emphasized to help guide the administrative personnel in designing and implementing an effective control environment.What Was Found? This year, the Auditors Office estimated that the Delaware volunteer fire service saved the state taxpayers over $244 million for fiscal year ending June 30, 2020.Recommendations Include: Approvals and purchase limits, inventory management, and organizational structure.

The primary objective of this report is to show Missouri's spending of federal assistance in the month of September 2020 for the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) emergency and the cumulative financial activity since the state began receiving funding in April 2020.

What Was Performed? A financial statement audit of the Achieving a Better Life Experience Act of 2014 (ABLE) Consortium Trust for Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 2020 was performed.Why This Engagement? The State of Delaware is a participating member of the ABLE Consortium Trust along with 16 other states.These statements were audited by a firm engaged by the Trust. The ABLE Act provides eligible individuals with blindness or qualifying disabilities a means to save for disability-related expenses in a tax -advantaged way through section 529A of the Internal Revenue Code. A consortium of states (Member States), of which the State of Delaware is a member, collaborated to facilitate the implementation and maintenance of qualified ABLE programs. Each Member State has adopted enabling legislation to establish a qualified plan under Section 529A.

The audit, which examined the period of September 1, 2018 through October 31, 2019, shows the Court's electronic filing system has reduced the time it takes to process cases. The audit also shows the Court is improving its processes related to the collection and reconciliation of fees.

The OIG initiated this investigation to determine if DPS employees were obtaining a benefit to which they were not entitled. We were additionally concerned that misapplications of policy were leading to improper payments and further adding to the County's COVID-19 debt burden.