Valley Corporation has a stock option plan designed to provide extra incentive to its officers and key employees. A note to the financial statements includes a description of the plan and lists the number of options for shares that have been authorized, the number granted, the number exercised, and the number expired. The option price and the market price per share on the grant dates and the exercise dates are also shown.

Required:

a. In view of the fact that the information concerning the stock option plan appears in a note, rather than in the body of the financial statements, what responsibility, if any, do the independent auditors have for this information?

b. List the audit procedures, if any, that you believe should be applied to the stock option plan information.