State Audit Findings
Business · Data tool
Every finding in the last three statewide Single Audits of Massachusetts, the yearly outside audit of how the state handles federal money and keeps its books. Search by year, agency or type of problem.
Official records: The Cape Ann Current digitized these findings from the official reports. For the full text of any finding and the state's response, read the report itself: fiscal 2025, fiscal 2024, fiscal 2023, all posted by the Office of the Comptroller.
What this audit is, and what it is not
Federal rules require states, cities and nonprofits that spend $750,000 or more in federal money in a year to get a Single Audit (the threshold rose to $1 million for years beginning Oct. 1, 2024). The Massachusetts Office of the Comptroller hires an outside accounting firm, CliftonLarsonAllen LLP, to do it. The firm checks the state's controls over its financial reporting and tests whether the largest federal programs, the "major programs," followed federal rules.
It is not an audit by the elected State Auditor, and it is not the audit of the Legislature that voters approved in 2024. The Legislature's own accounts are audited separately each year.
Material weakness: the more serious kind of finding. The auditor saw a reasonable possibility that a serious mistake or rule violation would not be prevented or caught in time. Significant deficiency: less severe, but important enough to report. Repeat finding: the same problem was reported the year before. Questioned costs: money the auditor says may have been spent outside federal rules; many findings list none or say the amount is undetermined.
Sources: 2 CFR 200.501; definitions from each report's independent auditors' letters.
Three years at a glance
What kinds of problems were found, all three years
Agencies with the most findings, all three years
Every finding
About this data
- Digitized Oct. 16, 2026 from the three reports. Each finding's number, agency, program, requirement, severity, repeat status and questioned costs are copied from the report; the "What the auditor found" line is the first sentence of the auditor's condition statement. "Type of problem" is the Cape Ann Current's plain language grouping of the federal compliance requirement.
- Where a report disagrees with itself, we follow the auditor's signed letter. In fiscal 2023, finding 2023-037 is headed "material weakness" but the letter lists it as a significant deficiency. In fiscal 2025, the summary page checks "material weakness" for financial reporting, but the letter and finding 2025-001 call it a significant deficiency.
- Download the data: CSV or JSON. Free to use with credit to the Cape Ann Current and the Office of the Comptroller.
- See an error? Email [email protected].