JOHNSTON — A report card on the town’s financial practices in the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2007, remains in its draft form, awaiting an official response from town officials, an auditor said yesterday.

The document, known as a “management letter” in accounting language, is supposed to be filed around the same time auditors complete their annual audit. The letter typically points out problematic financial practices and makes recommendations for improvement.

Johnston’s most recent audit was filed months late, in March. The management letter still isn’t complete because town officials haven’t supplied responses to the concerns in the letter, said Robert Civetti, an auditor with the Braver Group.

Civetti said he may issue the management letter today — without the town’s responses — but that will depend on the outcome of his meeting with the town’s finance director, Joseph Chiodo.

“Our past practice as a firm is we give them the courtesy to put their responses right in the letter,” Civetti said.

Civetti emphasized that Chiodo came on board only last spring, and he’s had to focus on budget planning for this year’s matters in his first months on the job. The draft management letter wasn’t complete until May, he said, adding that Chiodo shouldn’t be singled out for any blame.

The last management letter, for the budget year that ended June 30, 2006, caused great alarm at Town Hall when it was released in spring 2007.

That particular letter did not include any responses from the town because it was released after the departure of Mayor William R. Macera, Civetti said. The new chief executive, Mayor Joseph M. Polisena, and his finance director, Stephen Woerner, had not been in control of town finances during the period covered by the audit.

Nonetheless, Polisena promised a vigorous response to the audit issues, even though on his first day in office he fired the town’s budget analyst and its comptroller.

The staffing situation, Civetti said, diminished the town’s capacity to respond to issues in the audit for the budget year that ended June, 30, 2006.

At this point, the town is in a position to tackle some of its weaker financial practices and it should show significant progress in its audit for the current budget year, which ends June 30, Civetti said.

Polisena has hired a new comptroller, Patricia Testa, and Chiodo, Civetti said, is up to the task.

“All the pieces are in place,” Civetti said. “I think next year you’ll see a big difference in the management letter comments.”

The audit cycle doesn’t meld with the election system, Civetti said.

For example, the draft management letter concerns finances during the first six months of Polisena’s administration, when he had inherited a budget that had been planned by someone else.

The audited statement for the administration’s first full budget year won’t be complete until the winter. Voters will have to judge the administration’s performance without it.

mreynold@projo.com