Glendale Heights gets clean audit but audit flags delayed bank reconciliations

Glendale Heights officials said the village received an unmodified (clean) audit opinion for the 2025 fiscal year but were told auditors identified a material weakness in internal controls related to delayed bank reconciliations.

Finance Director Andrea Cravens introduced Christine Torres, partner at Crowe LLP, who told the Village Board the audit process produced a clean auditor's opinion. "The auditor's opinion is going to say that you have an unmodified or clean audit opinion," Torres said, adding the firm found "no significant items to bring to correction for the Village." Cravens told the board the village's general fund "has grown 3,100,000.0," and that reserves rose from roughly nine months to 10 months of expenditures.

Torres said the material weakness stems from staffing turnover and timing around bank reconciliations, which were delayed while the finance department implemented new software and managed retirements and vacancies. "We did have the one material weakness which means that if something is not caught, it could be material in a timely manner," Torres said. She said auditors found no compliance issues with the largest federal grant audited (the Illinois EPA loan grant) and no findings related to how federal dollars were expended.

Board members asked several technical questions about new accounting standards (GASB 101 on compensated absences), timing of final pension-plan data and what a "waived adjustment" means; auditors and Cravens said the waived adjustment was not material to the financial statements and that pension plan timing is handled in the next fiscal-year statements. Board members also confirmed the village's credit rating was "double A2" during the discussion.

Cravens said the finance team has taken measures to address the backlog, including hiring temporary staff and increasing overtime; she estimated it would take several months to bring reconciliations current. "We've got a mountain of work to do, but we've activated a solid plan with a solid team," she said.

What happens next: the village will receive the full comprehensive annual financial report (the auditors recommended reviewing management's discussion and analysis) and staff will continue implementing controls and staffing changes to resolve the bank-reconciliation backlog. The auditors indicated they will follow up on remediation during the next audit cycle.