Town Audits

The Town of North Berwick has its financial statements audited on a yearly basis.  The Auditor's responsibility is to express opinions on these financial statements based on the audit conducted in accordance with auditing standards generally accepted in the United States of America and the standards applicable to financial  audits contained in Government Auditing Standards, issued by the Comptroller General of the United States. Those standards require that the Auditor plan and perform the audit to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the financial statements are free of material misstatement.

An audit involves performing procedures to obtain audit evidence about the amounts and disclosures in the financial statements. The procedures selected depend on the auditor’s judgment, including the assessment of the risks of material misstatement of the financial statements, whether due to fraud or error.  In making  those risk assessments, the auditor considers internal control relevant to the entity’s preparation and fair presentation of the financial statements in order to design audit procedures that are appropriate in the circumstances, but not for the purpose of expressing an opinion on the effectiveness of the entity’s internal control.    An audit also includes evaluating the appropriateness of accounting policies used and the reasonableness of significant accounting estimates made by management, as well as evaluating the overall presentation of the financial statements.

The Town of North Berwick contracts, on a three year term, with an independent Auditing Firm to perfrom the yearly audit.  The Town's current Auditor is RHR Smith and Company from Buxton, Maine.