Heights Libraries Win Audit Award For 6th Straight Year

CLEVELAND HEIGHTS, OH — The Heights Libraries have won the Auditor of State Distinction award for the sixth straight year. The award is given to entities that have a "clean" audit report.

“Recipients of taxpayer dollars have a responsibility to keep excellent financial records,” Ohio Auditor of State Keith Faber said. “This award acknowledges the hard work and attention to detail required to properly track spending.”

Clean audit award winners must submit reports that have no weaknesses, deficiencies or prompt any questions about how money was spent. The Ohio Auditor of State's report on the Heights Libraries has been shared publicly online.

Heights Libraries Director Nancy Levin recently wrote about the library system's dedication to financial transparency. She noted that for a quarter century, Heights Libraries has published the Certified Annual Financial Report, which is available both in print and online for anyone to read.

Levin noted that the library system takes out an advertisement annually to alert people to the availability of the report. A brief synopsis, with highlights from the past year, is also placed in the fall issue of the Check Us Out program guide, which is mailed to every residents in the Cleveland Heights and University Heights communities in August.

"We want each of you to know how your tax dollars are spent. Building maintenance and repairs, expanding our collections, and paying our staff are all crucial to our operations. But we also want each of you to see how we strive to meet the needs of every member of our community: the young family with a newborn, the refugee looking for help, the unemployed who need an affordable way to learn new skills, the child looking for help with homework, the homebound adult who can’t get to our buildings, and, of course, the many people looking for entertainment, information, and inspiration from our programs, books, movies, and music," Levin said.