American Home Shield 2004 Annual Report Download - page 59

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2004 annual report ServiceMaster 57
report of independent registered public accounting firm
management certifications
In May 2004, the Company submitted to the New York Stock
Exchange the Annual CEO Certification required by Section
303A.12(a) of the New York Stock Exchange Listed Company
Manual. The Company has also filed, as exhibits to its Annual
Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2004, the
certifications of its Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial
Officer required by Section 302 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.
To the Board of Directors and
Shareholders of The ServiceMaster Company
We have audited the accompanying consolidated statements
of financial position of The ServiceMaster Company and sub-
sidiaries (the “Company”) as of December 31, 2004 and 2003,
and the related consolidated statements of operations, shareholders’
equity, and cash flows for each of the three years in the period
ended December 31, 2004. These financial statements are the
responsibility of the Company’s management. Our responsibility
is to express an opinion on these financial statements based on
our audits.
We conducted our audits in accordance with the standards of
the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (United
States). Those standards require that we plan and perform the
audit to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the financial
statements are free of material misstatement. An audit includes
examining, on a test basis, evidence supporting the amounts and
disclosures in the financial statements. An audit also includes
assessing the accounting principles used and significant estimates
made by management, as well as evaluating the overall financial
statement presentation. We believe that our audits provide a rea-
sonable basis for our opinion.
In our opinion, such consolidated financial statements present
fairly, in all material respects, the financial position of the Service-
Master Company and subsidiaries as of December 31, 2004 and
2003, and the results of their operations and their cash flows for
each of the three years in the period ended December 31, 2004, in
conformity with accounting principles generally accepted in the
United States of America.
We have also audited, in accordance with the standards of
the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (United
States), the effectiveness of the Company’s internal control over
financial reporting as of December 31, 2004, based on the criteria
established in Internal Control - Integrated Framework issued by
the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway
Commission and our report dated February 28, 2005 expressed an
unqualified opinion on management’s assessment of the effective-
ness of the Company’s internal control over financial reporting
and an unqualified opinion on the effectiveness of the Company’s
internal control over financial reporting.
Chicago, Illinois
February 28, 2005