As part of obtaining reasonable assurance about whether the County's financial statements are free from material misstatement, we performed tests of its compliance with certain provisions of laws, regulations, contracts, and grant agreements, noncompliance with which could have a direct and material effect on the financial statements. However, providing an opinion on compliance with those provisions was not an objective of our audit, and accordingly, we do not express such an opinion. The results of our tests disclosed no instances of noncompliance or other matters that are required to be reported under Government Auditing Standards. However, we noted certain immaterial instances of non-compliance or other matters which are described in Part IV of the accompanying schedule of findings and questioned costs.

Comments involving statutory and other legal matters about the County’s operations for the year ended June 30, 2023 are based exclusively on knowledge obtained from procedures performed during our audit of the financial statements of the County. Since our audit was based on tests and samples, not all transactions that might have had an impact on the comments were necessarily audited. The comments involving statutory and other legal matters are not intended to constitute legal interpretations of those statutes.

Government Auditing Standards requires the auditor to perform limited procedures on the County's response to the finding identified in our audit and described in the accompanying schedule of findings and questioned costs. The County's response was not subjected to the other auditing procedures applied in the audit of the financial statements and, accordingly, we express no opinion on the response.

The purpose of this report is solely to describe the scope of our testing of internal control and compliance and the results of that testing, and not to provide an opinion on the effectiveness of the entity's internal control or on compliance. This report is an integral part of an audit performed in accordance with Government Auditing Standards in considering the entity's internal control and compliance. Accordingly, this communication is not suitable for any other purpose.

Dubuque, Iowa

December 15, 2023

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