Our reports also lead to benefits that cannot be quantified, such as the new internal controls and management procedures put into place as a result of the audits. The benefits resulting from these improvements may be far more significant than any quantifiable savings that are identified.
Audit reports are generally prepared on an exception basis.
Therefore, most audit reports highlight matters that need to be improved, even though these matters may be the exceptions in otherwise well managed operations. Moreover, the activities we audit are generally selected on the basis of a risk analysis process. As a result of this process, our audit efforts are focused on operations that have been identified through preliminary surveys as having the greatest probability for needing improvement. However, even though our audits generally focus on areas likely to need improvement, the effectiveness of critical State government operations is acknowledged in our reports. In the past year, the Management Audit Group issued a total of 135 audit reports addressing the operations of State agencies and public authorities.