Merritt Research Services, an Investortools company, in partnership with the University of Illinois Chicago’s Government Finance Research Center (GFRC), has released its annual audit timing report for the 2024 Fiscal Year. The report, “The Lone Star Shines Bright: How Texas Found the Carrot (or the Stick?) to Improve Cities’ Audit Times,” examines the speed and efficiency of more than 16,000 municipal bond audits sourced from the Merritt Research Services database found in CreditScope.
This year’s report highlights audit time performance changes between 2020 and 2024, showing recovery from Covid-19 disruptions. It also examines Texas’ highly effective Senate Bill 1851 enforcement mechanism, which created a property tax penalty for late filers and demonstrated the immediate improvement other states could achieve with a similar approach.
Key Takeaways
- Median audit time rose from 150 days in 2013 to 166 days in 2024, but most sectors improved from 2023 to 2024 despite auditor shortage concerns.
- From 2020 to 2024, several sectors improved audit timing, led by community colleges, hospitals, counties, and school districts, while others saw delays worsen.
- In FY2024, wholesale electric issuers and school districts had the strongest 180-day completion rates; water and sewer and dedicated tax issuers lagged.
- Texas’ Senate Bill 1851 drove rapid improvement to audit times: 48 of 99 municipalities that exceeded the 180-day filing requirement in fiscal year 2024 already completed their 2025 audits, with every single one improving their audit time.
In addition to mitigating risks, improving processes, and supporting efficient resource allocation, timely audit reporting ensures accurate financial information for credit evaluation, bond market pricing, and stakeholder decisions.
To recognize and encourage timely transparency, Merritt has been tracking and reporting on the completion and signing times of municipal bond-related audits since 2007. Starting in 2022, Merritt has partnered with the GFRC to further this effort.
Investortools Product Contact
Richard A. Ciccarone
President Emeritus of Merritt Research Services, an Investortools company
richard.ciccarone@merrittresearch.com
Investortools Media Contact
Jessica McDaniel
Marketing Lead
jessica.mcdaniel@invtools.com
University of Illinois Chicago Media Contact
Brian Flood
Senior Associate Director, University Communications
bflood@uic.edu
About Investortools
For more than four decades, Investortools has been a leading provider of solutions regarded by the industry as a prerequisite for fixed-income investment management. Its comprehensive product suite covers portfolio, order, and execution management, performance analytics, 2a-7 compliance, and credit analysis. Trusted by over 200 firms managing more than $1 trillion in assets, Investortools supports SMA managers, fund managers, broker-dealers, and other key market participants.
About the Government Finance Research Center
The purpose of the Government Finance Research Center at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs (CUPPA) is to shape and inform public policy and scholarly discourse on government and public finance by identifying, planning, and executing research, providing reports and informed analyses, delivering educational opportunities and technical training, and offering inclusive venues to convene national and local discussions on fiscal and governance issues.
