AN ANALYSIS OF COMPLIANCE AUDITS OF A STATE GOVERNMENT

Leonard Branson
Frank Nation
Derick Clark
University of Illinois Springfield

ABSTRACT

To assure the public that its tax dollars are being used appropriately, governmental
agencies are required to have an audit to see if they are operating according to the “rules”.
These audits are referred to as compliance audits. These audits examine whether state agencies
are operating according to their enabling statutes, and other requirements such as contracts and
federal government regulations. This study examines the relationship between the number of
compliance audit findings an agency has and how big the agency is (as measured by number of
employees), how complex the agency is (as measured by the number of mandates it is responsible
for), and whether the agency is audited by a government auditor from the Office of the Auditor
General (OAG) or an auditor from a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) firm.

Keywords: Compliance audit findings, Certified Public Accountant, government auditor