Opinion ID: 507855
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Auditors' Sampling Techniques

Text: 29 A second reason cited by the Secretary in support of his partial reversal of the Board was that [t]he [Board] based its decision not on a substantive review of the field trips in question but on the fact that the auditors extrapolated from a review of 200 randomly selected field trips to the full 3,320 field trips under audit. The Board, however, found that the 200-trip sample could not be adequately evaluated. The Board focused its objections on the quality of the sample and the inferences that it could support, not on the size of and extrapolation from the sample. The Board was concerned about the auditors' extrapolation from the 24 trips mentioned to the 200-trip sample. The Assistant Secretary agrees that extrapolation from the sample of 200 was not the problem. The Secretary's discussion of the Board's review of the 200-trip sample does not support, nor does it establish any cause, for reversing the Board on this ground.