Single Audit Benchmark for Local Governments

Every government that spends $750K+ in federal awards files a public single audit. Look up any city, county, or district's audit report card — findings, material weaknesses, filing timeliness — and see how it stacks up against similar-sized peers nationwide. Data from the Federal Audit Clearinghouse, audit years 2023–2025.

Local Governments
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Single Audits
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Distinct Findings
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Filed Past Deadline
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Look up your government

Search 24,000+ cities, counties, school districts, and special districts by name.

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Search for a local government above, or start with an example:

Reading the report card: percentiles compare the latest audit against every local government in the same annual-federal-spend band (loan balances that must be re-reported each year are excluded from banding). Letters under findings are the compliance areas cited — hover any letter for its name. “Repeat” findings are ones the auditor attested repeat a prior-year finding.

Where local governments get written up

Distinct audit findings from audit years 2023–2025, grouped by the Compliance Supplement requirement they cite. Click a row to see what drives it and which programs are most often cited.

Material weakness All findings

Takeaway: Reporting is the #1 compliance failure for local governments — and a large share of reporting findings are repeats from a prior audit. Procurement and program-specific special tests round out the top three.

Size changes the risk profile

Peer bands by annual federal expenditures. Bigger governments have more findings but file on time; small governments miss the 9-month deadline far more often.

Which federal agencies' money is hardest to stay clean on

Each row counts local-government audits that covered at least one of the agency's programs, and how many of those audits reported a finding on that agency's money. Click an agency for its riskiest programs.

Agency Audits Audits w/ Findings Expended

Agencies with fewer than 200 local-government audits are grouped into “Other federal agencies.”

About Single Audits and This Benchmark

Under 2 CFR 200 Subpart F (the Uniform Guidance), any government that spends $750,000 or more in federal awards in a fiscal year — rising to $1 million for fiscal years beginning on or after October 1, 2024 — must undergo a single audit: an organization-wide examination of its financial statements and its compliance with federal program requirements. The results are public records filed with the Federal Audit Clearinghouse, but they're hard to explore and nearly impossible to benchmark. This tool makes three years of local-government single audits searchable and comparable.

Audit history matters beyond the audit itself: pass-through agencies and federal awarding offices use it in the risk assessments that determine how heavily your government is monitored — and repeat findings or late filings can affect future awards. If your government receives federal money through your state, your funders are already looking at this data. See how federal dollars flow to local governments on our Federal Grant Map, or learn how Avila helps teams stay compliant after the award.

What the Numbers Mean

  • Findings — distinct deficiencies the auditor reported in internal control or federal program compliance. The Clearinghouse lists each finding once per federal award it touches; we deduplicate so a single payroll-documentation finding cited across 29 programs counts once (the citation count is shown separately).
  • Material weakness — the most severe internal-control classification: a deficiency that creates a reasonable possibility of material noncompliance going undetected.
  • Repeat findings — findings the auditor attested (on the SF-SAC form) repeat a finding from the immediately prior audit, including audits earlier than the years shown here.
  • Filed late — the Clearinghouse accepted the certified submission after the 9-month deadline in 2 CFR 200.512. Governments that haven't filed at all don't appear, so recent-year late rates understate the problem.
  • Peer percentiles — comparison against every local government nationwide in the same annual-federal-spend band, using the latest audit on file. Ties share rank: with most governments at zero findings, a clean audit beats the share of peers that had findings.

Data Source and Methodology

All data comes from the Federal Audit Clearinghouse public API, covering audit years 2023 through 2025 for entities classified as local governments — cities, towns, counties, school districts, housing authorities, and special districts. States, tribes, nonprofits, and universities are excluded. Expenditure peer bands exclude outstanding loan balances that 2 CFR 200.502(b) requires auditees to re-report as expenditures every year, so loan-heavy governments are compared on actual new federal money. Where one government filed under multiple identifiers, records are merged by normalized name. The dataset refreshes periodically; audit years roll forward as new filings are accepted.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a single audit?

Any government or nonprofit that spends $750,000 or more in federal awards in a fiscal year ($1 million for fiscal years beginning on or after October 1, 2024) must undergo a single audit under 2 CFR 200 Subpart F — an organization-wide audit of both its financial statements and its compliance with federal program requirements. Results are filed publicly with the Federal Audit Clearinghouse.

Where does this data come from?

The Federal Audit Clearinghouse (fac.gov), the official repository for single audit reports, covering audit years 2023 through 2025 for entities classified as local governments.

Why does my government show fewer findings than our audit report lists?

The Clearinghouse data lists each finding once for every federal award it touches, so one finding cited across many programs appears many times. We count distinct findings by their reference number (e.g., 2024-001) and show the citation count separately.

What does "no newer audit on file" mean?

Based on the government's own fiscal-year-end cadence, a newer audit's 9-month filing deadline has passed without a filing appearing in the Clearinghouse. That can mean the audit is overdue — or that a single audit was no longer required because federal spending fell below the threshold.

Why should I compare against peers?

Pass-through agencies and federal awarding offices use single audit history in risk assessments that determine monitoring intensity and can affect future awards. Knowing where your government stands against similar-sized peers — and which compliance areas trip peers up most — tells you where to focus internal controls before the next audit. Avila's post-award management platform helps you fix the underlying tracking and reporting gaps.

How often is the data updated?

The dataset is rebuilt periodically from the Federal Audit Clearinghouse public API. New audit years appear as filings are accepted; recent months are always partial because audits are due nine months after each government's fiscal year end.

Findings Start Long Before the Audit

Avila tracks deadlines, spending, and reporting requirements across every award — so reporting findings, the #1 audit failure, never start.

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