Despite prior studies in the corporate sector, relatively little empirical research considers how audit committees influence nonprofit or governmental financial reporting. One exception is Pridgen and Wang (2012), who analyze a sample of nonprofit hospitals subject to the Single Audit Act from 2001 to 2008. The authors find mixed results for the effectiveness of audit committees. In addition, a recent working paper by Elder, Feng, and Neely (2014) finds that formation of nonprofit audit committees relates to higher reported administrative expenses, suggesting a financial reporting impact. However, given the political and regulatory characteristics of governmental organizations that distinguish municipalities from both the corporate and other nonprofit enterprises (Vermeer, Raghunandan, and Forgione 2006), the consequences of municipal audit committees are not obvious ex ante. Therefore, whether and how internal control quality relates to audit committee existence in a largely unregulated setting is an empirical question.