For the 2023 fiscal year, the Osage Nation government audit report is deemed clean with no significant deficiencies, according to an independent accounting firm.
REDW conducted the audit of the Nation’s government operations for FY 2023 and has audited the Nation in previous years. Mike Dierlam, an Arizona-based CPA principal with REDW, met virtually with the 9th Osage Nation Congress during the Tzi-Sho Session to deliver an audit presentation.
“Our objective, what we’re trying to accomplish as part of the audit is to obtain reasonable, but not absolute, assurance regarding the financial statements in ensuring that they’re free from material misstatements, whether through fraud or error, and hopefully what that boils down to is if a third party were to obtain the Nation’s financial statements, whether that be a lender or someone that is reading the financial statements and relying on the numbers in there, our audit opinion is to provide reasonable assurance the balances in there are materially correct,” Dierlam said.
“We issued ‘unmodified’ opinions on the Nation’s financial statements and those financial statements of the Osage LLC for the year ending Sept. 30, 2023,” Dierlam said. “An ‘unmodified’ opinion is also referred to as a clean opinion … You want to make sure your balances are correct and then auditors can issue an ‘unmodified’ opinion. It doesn’t necessarily mean everything is perfect, it doesn’t mean that there’s no opportunities for improvement, it doesn’t mean there’s potentially findings, it just means those financial statement balances can be relied upon.”
“Once again, the Osage Nation has received an outstanding audit report showing strong oversight by the Osage Nation Treasury, Procurement, Accounting, and Grants Departments,“ Principal Chief Geoffrey Standing Bear said in a statement. “We are grateful to our Osage Nation employees for this massive accomplishment, which speaks to their hard work and dedication.”
During his presentation, Dierlam praised the Nation’s management officials who provided records and information as requested for the audit work. “We really requested a lot of documentation, a lot of sampling, reconciliations, a lot of questions for management regarding balances, transactions, disclosures during the audit process,” he said.
While working on the audit process, Dierlam said some audit adjustments were needed and provided by management. “There’s no material weaknesses or significant deficiencies reported on the Osage Nation’s governmental reports for 2023 … Ultimately it means that the finance team and internal controls are there and present.”
According to its website, REDW has offices in Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma City and Oregon with more than 200 tribal government clients, 69% of REDW Principals across all service lines directly serve tribes and company services include accounting, advising, gaming operations consulting and tax services.
For more information regarding ON Congressional sessions, filed legislation and Congressional committee meetings, visit the Legislative Branch website at www.osagenation-nsn.gov/who-we-are/legislative-branch
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