Department of Internal Audit

The Chesterfield County office of Internal Audit was established in September 1978. The office is responsible to county and School Board Management for performing operational, financial, compliance, and program results audits, as well as conducting special audits and non-audit projects. The operating guidelines for Internal Audit are adopted from Government Auditing Standards, issued by the Comptroller General of the United States, General Accounting Office. Internal Audit independently collects and analyzes information on county and School Board operations.

In FY07 the Auditor's Office was authorized eight auditors including one School Board position. Staff members are competitively recruited from both the public and private sectors. Auditors generally have business degrees and are also certified public accountants, certified internal auditors or certified information systems auditors.

Internal Audit staff participate in one or more of the following organizations: Virginia Local Government Auditors Association, Association of Local Government Accountants, Institute of Internal Auditors, Virginia Association of School Board Officers and the Information Systems Audit and Control Association.

Internal Audit saves county taxpayers' funds by assisting the external auditor annually in completion of the annual audit. Additionally, the office continually identifies and helps county departments implement cost saving ideas or suggestions that improve service to the citizens of Chesterfield County.  In FY07 the office identified over $3.5 million in actual and potential dollar savings for the taxpayers.

Specifically, audits include the following five broad categories:

• Reviewing the reliability and integrity of financial and operating information and the means used to identify, measure, classify, and report such information.
  
• Reviewing the systems established to ensure compliance with those policies, plans, procedures, laws and regulations which could have a significant impact on Chesterfield County.
  
• Reviewing the means of safeguarding assets and, as appropriate, verifying the existence of such assets.
  
• Appraising the economy and efficiency with which resources are applied.
  
• Reviewing operations or programs to determine if results are consistent with established goals and whether the operation's objectives are being carried out as planned.

Our Vision & Mission

To be the recognized leader in the Internal Audit profession.

"Working together with management to lead an efficient customer oriented government with the highest ethics and integrity."

External Auditing

Chesterfield County is audited annually by external auditors. The FY 2007 audit which covered the period July 1,2006 through June 30, 2007 was completed in November 2007 and resulted in a clean unqualified opinion.

Currently the county is audited externally by KPMG. This audit combined with Internal Audits, helps to provide a government to citizens that is financially sound with good internal controls.

Internal Auditing

Under the provisions of the Chesterfield County Charter, the primary responsibility of the Internal Auditor is to provide internal accounting and auditing controls which assure compliance with applicable laws, contractual obligations, accepted accounting practices, and safeguarding against loss or inefficiency.

This responsibility is carried out using the Government Audit Standards, as issued by the United States General Accounting Office (GAO - Yellow Book).