Dhe Burgenland State Audit Office (BLRH) examined the state’s municipal supervision – specifically, it was about the state’s audit procedures on the opening balance sheets of the Burgenland municipalities.
The BLRH determined that the department responsible for examining the 171 opening balance sheets did not have any additional staff, and there were also no specifications for the scope of the audit.
The municipalities had to prepare the opening balances as of January 1, 2020 in accordance with the Ordinance on Estimates and Closing of Accounts 2015 (VRV 2015). The state supported the municipalities in converting to the VRV 2015, with preparations for implementation already being made in 2016. The project team was supported by an external expert, whose service provision began at least three months before the assignment. The BLRH recommended that, for reasons of legal certainty, the state should issue orders in writing and before the service is rendered. Likewise, invoices or fee notes should contain detailed lists of services, it said.
The state audit office stated that the management supervision department did not receive any additional human resources for the examination of the 171 opening balance sheets. The employees had to do this in addition to their other tasks. There were also no specifications for the scope of the audit, the depth of the audit and the duration of the audit. The BLRH therefore recommended that the state keep internal time records to ensure comprehensible and efficient resource planning.
The BLRH detected time pressure when meeting the deadlines, because the state informed the municipalities on August 19, 2020 that the opening balances had to be approved by September 30 and submitted by October 31, 2020. More than half of the municipalities did not meet these deadlines. The state documented the legal measures such as deadline extensions and reminders “not consistently”, as it was said.
A plausibility check by the country showed that 69 of the 171 opening balance sheets contained deficiencies. The most common complaints related to discrepancies between the remaining income and expenses in the 2019 financial statement and the receivables and liabilities in the 2020 opening balance sheet, the allocation to personnel provisions and the disclosure of investments. “The state of Burgenland should set clear guidelines and ensure risk-oriented audit planning in order to increase the effectiveness of municipal supervision. All audit procedures must be documented in order to be able to guarantee transparency,” stated the Director of the State Audit Office, René Wenk.
In its report, the BLRH recorded the “good work” of the municipal supervisory authority and emphasized that the audit procedures of the responsible department were successful, according to SPÖ audit office spokesman Christian Dax in a broadcast. The changeover to the VRV 2015 was an “enormous feat” for everyone involved, making it all the more gratifying that a total of 1,045 municipal employees took part in almost 70 seminars in the state.
