US: Missed rule change leads to audit finding for Potato Commission

The Washington Potato Commission didn’t know about new guidelines for reporting pension funds, and as a result made mistakes on its pension fund reporting, according to an audit report from the Washington State Auditor’s Office. The audit finding was part of the commission’s 2015 audit. The auditors said the commission “relied upon a CPA (certified public accountant) to understand and apply new reporting factors, as well as prepare the financial statement.” Rules that changed the way pensions were reported came into effect before 2015, the auditors said, but neither the commission’s accounting firm or the commissioners were aware of that. The commission staff, in their reply to the auditors, said the reporting rules covered the way the commission reported pension funds. “The commission did not know it was required to report the commission’s share of the state of Washington’s pension liability as part of its own financial reporting.” More