By Tom Latek
Kentucky Today
The Kentucky Judicial Branch received a clean audit opinion on its financial statement for Fiscal Year 2024 (July 1, 2023-June 30, 2024) from an independent external auditor.
Cherry Bekaert LLC audited the FY 2024 financial statement from the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) and found that the statement was free of material misstatements and contained no material findings.
The firm found that the financial statement, “presents fairly, in all material respects, the fund balance of the Judicial Branch, as of June 30, 2024, and the cash receipts, disbursements, and changes in fund balance for the year then ended,” in accordance with accounting practices under state law.
“The results of the 2024 audit are an exemplification of our commitment to accountability and best practices for financial integrity,” said Kentucky Supreme Court Chief Justice Laurance B. VanMeter. “Transparency with the use of taxpayer dollars is of the utmost importance, and we are pleased to share this audit with the public.”
The AOC began contracting for audits every other year under a Supreme Court administrative Order issued in 2019, requiring the agency to issue a request for proposals to conduct external audits of its financial information beginning with FY 2021 and to make the resulting reports public. While some portions of that order have since been amended, the external audit requirement remains the same.
This followed a special examination by the State Auditor’s Office, the first since the AOC was founded in 1976, which resulted from media reports on the sale of cars and other items in private, AOC employee-only auctions.
That 13-month examination detailed 20 findings, including a lack of documentation on why office space was rented for a Supreme Court Justice from a company owned by his sons costing almost three times the amount of another proposal. Other issues included $2 million of inventory errors, lack of documentation for credit card expenses by the Chief Justice and AOC Director, taxable benefits like take-home vehicles not properly reported, and an overall lack of policies and oversight.
The AOC is the operations arm of the state court system and executes the Judicial Branch budget.
You can see the report at kcoj.info/auditFY2024.