5.1. ERMUSR 04-14-2009 - Laserfiche WebLink

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ABI~ SICK & ti~rli%ierl PrrGlic -cc~crnrntrruts c (:~rrrvult+reri Apri19, 2009 al(}l E:rleu riverttre~ ~uitt• ;;ill Management and Public Utilities Commission Elk River Municipal Utilities Elk River, Minnesota We have audited the financial statements of the Elk River Municipal Utilities (the Utilities) for years ended December 31, 2008 and 2007 and have issued our report thereon Apri19, 2009. Professional standards require that we provide you with the following information related to our audits. Our Responsibility Under Auditing Standards Generally Accepted in the United States As stated in our engagement letter, our responsibility, as described by professional standards, is to express and opinion about whether the financial statements prepared by management with your oversight are fairly presented, in all material respects, in conformity with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States. Our audit of the financial statements does not relieve you or management of your responsibilities. Our responsibility is to plan and perform the audit to obtain reasonable, but not absolute, assurance that the financial statements are free of material misstatement. As part of our audit, we considered the internal control over financial reporting of the Utilities. Such considerations were solely for the purpose of determining our audit procedures and not to provide any assurance concerning such internal control. We are responsible for communicating significant matters related to the audit that are, in our professional judgment, relevant to your responsibilities in overseeing the financial reporting process. However, we are not required to design procedures specifically to identify such matters. Significant Audit Findings In planning and performing our audit, we considered the Utilities' intemal control over financial reporting as a basis for designing our auditing procedures for the purpose of expressing our opinion on the financial statements, but not for the purpose of expressing an opinion on the effectiveness of the Utilities' intemal control over financial reporting. Accordingly, we do not express an opinion on the effectiveness of the Utilities' internal control over financial reporting. Our consideration of internal control over financial reporting was for the limited purpose described in the preceding paragraph and would not necessarily identify all deficiencies in internal control over financial reporting that might be significant deficiencies or material weaknesses. However, as discussed below, we identified certain deficiencies in internal control that we consider to be significant deficiencies and other significant deficiencies in intemal control over financial reporting that we consider to be material weaknesses. A control deficiency exists when the design or operation of a control does not allow management or employees, in the normal course of performing their assigned functions, to prevent or detect misstatements on a timely basis. A significant deficiency is a control deficiency, or a combination of control deficiencies, that adversely affects the entity's ability to initiate, authorize, record, process, or report financial data reliably in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles such that there is more than a remote likelihood that a misstatement of the entity's financial statements that is more than inconsequential will not be prevented or detected by the entity's internal control. We consider the deficiency listed on the following page to be a significant deficiency in internal control over financial reporting. 952.8359090 Fax 952.835.3261 www.aemcpas.com