Local governments

Updated: December 9, 2021

The State Auditor's Office will start the annual process of updating the BARS Manuals (GAAP and Cash) on Monday, Dec. 13, 2021.

During the updates, sections of both online BARS Manuals will be unavailable for your use. Once updated, they will be fully available for accounting and reporting guidance related to fiscal year 2021 and forward.

We will notify local government audit contacts via email when we have fully updated the BARS Manuals.

While the city of Wapato's financial safeguards have improved somewhat since the city's last audits, the Office of the Washington State Auditor found significant weaknesses in two audits released today.

“The city had a lot of ground to make up in instituting appropriate polices and controls after our last round of audits. Nevertheless, the public expects all governments to be accountable at all times,” State Auditor Pat McCarthy said. “I am concerned by the pace of improvement in Wapato.”

The Center for Government Innovation at the State Auditor's Office is excited to announce our new Accounts Payable Guide for local governments. Use this guide to find ways to improve your operations and discover best practices.

This guide has something for each role in the accounts payable process, whether you are:

When was the last time you reviewed and updated your deposit process? Deposits become so routine that it is easy to forget that your internal controls might need adjusting as your financial activity changes over time. On top of that, there are new options and technology for deposits that can help you strengthen your security measures.

Here are some tips and resources to get you started:

The Department of Retirement Systems's (DRS) 2021 Participating Employer Financial Information (PEFI) report showed that six out of eight state-sponsored pension plans are fully funded. While this means that these plans are in a better position to provide pension benefits to employees who are enrolled in them, it also means that many more governments will be reporting a net pension asset this year instead of a net pension liability.

Every local government in Washington is legally required to submit an annual financial report to the State Auditor's Office. In turn, SAO is legally required to publish the data from that annual report and make it available to the public. We do this through our online Financial Intelligence Tool (FIT).

Every quarter, we publish an updated snapshot-in-time of the financial data SAO has, which ensures that FIT contains the most recent data for every local government that successfully filed a report.

Budgeting and planning season is here for local governments that have a Dec. 31 fiscal year-end. With 2022 on the horizon, some governments might be anticipating increases to certain revenues or planning changes to salaries and benefits. Our Financial Intelligence Tool's (FIT) “Add Projection” feature allows governments to adjust their known or anticipated revenues and expenditures, and then project those amounts into the future. Continue reading to learn how to access this feature and start projecting today.

How to create a projection

While every financial system's internal controls are important, establishing strong controls for your government's accounts payable process is particularly critical for preventing errors and deterring or quickly detecting fraud. From maintaining master vendor files to preventing duplicate payments and transactions, accounts payable requires a robust set of internal controls for ensuring your government safeguards public resources.

This is the fifth article of our seven-part K&P leadership series. Missed the previous article on enabling others to act? Read it here.

2020 was anything but normal, and we can look at the annual reports that Washington's cities and towns recently submitted to see how the COVID-19 pandemic affected their operations. How did the pandemic affect sales tax collections? How did federal funding support our cities and towns as they navigated the economic challenges of the pandemic?