Company: MSEX
Filing Date: 2025-02-28
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001174947-25-000251
Chunk: 988

Company: MIDDLESEX WATER CO
Filing Date: 2025-02-28
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 6
Chunk 988
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 these consolidated financial statements, for maintaining effective internal control over financial reporting, and for its assessment
of the effectiveness of internal control over financial reporting, included in the accompanying Management’s Report on Internal
Control over Financial Reporting. Our responsibility is to express an opinion on the Company's consolidated financial statements and an
opinion on the Company’s internal control over financial reporting based on our audits. We are a public accounting firm registered
with the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (United States) ("PCAOB") and are required to be independent with respect
to the Company in accordance with the U.S. federal securities laws and the applicable rules and regulations of the Securities and Exchange
Commission and the PCAOB.

We conducted our audits in accordance with the
standards of the PCAOB. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audits to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the consolidated
financial statements are free of material misstatement, whether due to error or fraud and whether effective internal control over financial
reporting was maintained in all material respects.

Our audits of the financial statements included
performing procedures to assess the risks of material misstatement of the consolidated financial statements, whether due to error or fraud,
and performing procedures that respond to those risks. Such procedures included examining, on a test basis, evidence regarding the amounts
and disclosures in the consolidated financial statements. Our audits also included evaluating the accounting principles used and significant
estimates made by management, as well as evaluating the overall presentation of the consolidated financial statements. Our audit of internal
control over financial reporting included obtaining an understanding of internal control over financial reporting, assessing the risk
that a material weakness exists, and testing and evaluating the design and operating effectiveness of internal control based on the assessed
risk. Our audits also included performing such other procedures as we considered necessary in the circumstances. We believe that our audits
provide a reasonable basis for our opinions.

38 

Definition and Limitations of Internal Control
Over Financial Reporting

A company's internal control over financial reporting
is a process designed to provide reasonable assurance regarding the reliability of financial reporting and the preparation of financial
statements for external purposes in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. A company's internal control over financial
reporting includes those policies and procedures that (1) pertain to the maintenance of records that, in reasonable detail, accurately
and fairly reflect the transactions and dispositions of the assets of the company; (2) provide reasonable assurance that transactions
are recorded as necessary to permit preparation of financial statements in accordance with generally accepted accounting