FIRST BANCORP /NC/ 10-Q

Item 4 – Controls and Procedures Management, under the supervision of and with the participation of our Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer, assessed the effectiveness of the design and operation of the Company’s disclosure controls and procedures, which are our controls and other procedures that are designed to ensure that information required to be disclosed in our periodic reports with the SEC is recorded, processed, summarized and reported within the required time periods. Disclosure controls and procedures include, without limitation, controls and procedures designed to ensure that information required to be disclosed is communicated to our management to allow timely decisions regarding required disclosure. Based on this assessment, the Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer concluded that our disclosure controls and procedures as of June 30, 2024 are effective in allowing timely decisions regarding disclosure to be made about material information required to be included in our periodic reports with the SEC. Other than the implementation of additional measures in connection with the remediation plan for the material weakness discussed below, there has been no change in our internal control over financial reporting which has occurred during, or subsequent to, the period covered by this report that has materially affected, or is reasonably likely to materially affect, our internal control over financial reporting. Remediation of Previously Disclosed Material Weakness As previously reported in Item 9A of our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2023, management identified a material weakness in our internal control over financial reporting related to information technology general controls in the area of user access management within an application supporting the Company’s accounting and reporting processes, which resulted in certain segregation of duties conflicts. As such, certain of the Company’s manual business process controls dependent upon the information derived from this application were also ineffective. Management has concluded that, as of June 30, 2024, the material weakness has been effectively remediated. This conclusion is based on the completion of remaining remediation activities, including testing of enhanced user provisioning control over a sufficient period of time and hiring of resources to ensure proper segregation of duties, demonstrating their effectiveness in addressing the previously identified deficiencies. Page 56 Index Part II. Other Information