Humboldt County catches up on overdue audits, returns to normal cycle

Humboldt County has closed a six-year audit backlog and says it is back on a regular annual cycle for the first time since 2020, a turning point that goes beyond bookkeeping. The county said June 9 that it received the final draft of its fiscal year 2024-25 audited financial statements and single audit, finishing a catch-up effort that took a little more than three years and exposed how much was at stake while the files piled up.

The stakes were not abstract. Humboldt County said delayed audits can threaten state and federal funding, trigger a high-risk auditee designation and damage a county’s credit rating. The county also said it experienced some of those consequences while its audits were overdue, making the backlog an issue of fiscal credibility as much as administrative delay. The next audit, for fiscal year 2025-26, is due March 31, 2027, and the Auditor-Controller’s Office says it is committed to meeting that deadline.

Interim Auditor-Controller Mychal Evenson said the turnaround began in fall 2022 and required departments to reconstruct older transactions and processes while still handling day-to-day work. The county said that effort has already improved accounting systems and financial recordkeeping, helping departments make better decisions and giving county leadership a clearer view of Humboldt’s fiscal condition. Now that the overdue audits are current, Evenson said the county can focus more directly on internal controls and the internal environment.

The push to regain control was formalized earlier, when the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors created the Humboldt County Audit Committee by Resolution 21-30 on March 16, 2021. The committee’s charge covers the integrity of financial statements, internal controls, auditor independence and corrective action plans, underscoring how seriously the county treated the breakdown in its audit cycle. The Auditor-Controller’s Office, which provides accounting and financial support to county departments, special districts and other agencies, has been at the center of the recovery effort from its office in Eureka.

The county’s public archive shows that the work is not finished just because the overdue audits are done. The 2024 corrective action plan still lists material weaknesses involving year-end receivables, unavailable revenue and capital asset prior-period adjustments, with Evenson named as the contact for corrective action on at least some of those findings. The archive also includes 2025 audit materials, such as a single audit report, management letter, financial statements, governance communication, corrective action plan and summary schedule of prior audit findings.

That record gives Humboldt’s latest announcement a sharper meaning: the county has caught up, but the credibility test now shifts to whether the next cycle stays current and whether the control problems identified in recent reports continue to shrink.