Below are a sampling of disclosures made in October that describe changes to the state of their internal control over financial reporting, as required by SOX 302. Please be aware that the excerpts below are just that: excerpts. The complete SEC filings are available for those who would like to review the complete disclosures in greater detail. For related information on the list below, please refer to the related story from the Nov. 9 edition of Compliance Week.

Company

Date

Description

Public Service Electric & Gas Co.—

Electric utility.

2003 Sales: $6.7b

Auditor:

Deloitte & Touche

Oct. 29

CONTROLS CHANGED SIGNIFICANTLY DURING TESTING PHASE —

During the quarter, PSEG, PSE&G, Power and Energy Holdings conducted testing and enhancement of their respective internal controls over financial reporting to enable PSEG to meet the requirements of the Sarbanes Oxley Act as of December 31, 2004. These ongoing efforts, which required some significant changes to internal controls, and which are subject to audit, have improved the design and operational effectiveness of PSEG's control processes and systems for financial reporting. It should be noted that the design of any system of controls is based, in part, on certain assumptions about the likelihood of future events, and provides reasonable assurance that the internal control system will succeed in achieving its stated goals.

Ferrellgas Partners—

Petroleum gas dealer.

2003 Sales: $1.1b

Auditor:

Deloitte & Touche

Oct. 13

CONTROLS MODIFIED —

Due to the deployment of our new technology initiative during fiscal year 2004, we modified our internal controls over financial reporting during the quarter ended July 31, 2004. This modification of internal controls over financial reporting was made to align our internal controls with the implementation of our new technology initiative … This implementation is being conducted in phases by geographical areas and is scheduled to be completed in the first quarter of fiscal 2006. This new technology initiative has been designed to improve various aspects of our operations including routing and scheduling of customer deliveries, customer administration and operational workflow related to our retail sale and delivery of bulk propane.

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