Generally accepted accounting principles require governments to include in their annual reports a comparison of actual results with the budget for each governmental fund for which an annual budget has been adopted. This information is generally presented as “required supplementary information” and as such is not subject to the same degree of auditor scrutiny as is data included in the basic financial statements or accompanying notes. Do you think the budget-to-actual comparison is sufficiently important to be included as part of the basic financial statements? Are governments permitted to include their budget-to-actual comparisons as part of the basic financial statements?