An audit this spring of Mount Vernon school district’s accounting practices in fiscal year 2022 (school year 2021-22) found that the practices are fine in all material (significant) respects.
The audit concluded, though, that the district has some deficiencies in some of its internal controls and in some of its immaterial (non-significant) accounting practices.
Dustin Opatz, of auditing firm KBD, presented the firm’s latest annual findings to the school board at its May 8 meeting. All school board members were present.
Regarding the district’s internal controls, the audit found that the school district didn’t segregate (separate) its accounting duties well enough. Problems were that the district had only three people performing all the duties, that it had a few corrections to make in its audit, and that it didn’t review its student activity balances during the year, like it usually does.
Regarding the district’s non-significant (immaterial) accounting practices, the audit found that the district had over-reported its enrollment by counting in the enrollment one student from another school district, incorrectly coded the student activity balance thereby causing it to show a significantly negative deficit (some $50,000), incorrectly coded financial purchase agreements and paid them out of the wrong fund, incorrectly coded district facility rental revenues and put them in the wrong fund, and didn’t have good depository resolution (didn’t state where funds were being deposited/what they were for).
However, both the Child Nutrition Program and the ESSER (Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund) program had clean reports.
“A lot of our problems are with coding—not with missing things,” said Superintendent Greg Batenhorst.
School board treasurer Michael Marshall noted that the district would have found a lot of the coding errors if it had been on the regular June and August auditing schedule.
Batenhorst noted that the district usually clears up any issues after those summer visits before its annual report is completed in September.
The district didn’t do that in 2022 but will get back to that schedule this year (2022-23), he said.
Certified enrollmentThe district increased enrollment by 20 students over the past five years, with 17 of those students coming to the district in the 2021-22 school year.
Expenditure allocation Instruction was allocated sixty-six percent of the budget in 2021-22—an increase of approximately 5.7 percent over the previous year.
The unassigned balance was approximately 11 percent of current expenditures.
Tax levyThe tax levy rate stayed flat from 2021 to 2022 (17.8926), and the levy increased from $5,867,474 to $6,061,881.
Nutrition FundIn 2022 the district got a significantly higher reimbursement rate—an increase of approximately 42 percent—in the Nutrition Fund, giving the district a cushion of approximately $282,000.
Fiscal year 2023 will no longer have an increased rate in the fund.
Budget this yearThe district budgeted for approximately $3 million this year, and is currently approximately $182,000 under budget.
District expenses are approximately 12 percent under budget due to conservative budgeting and the construction project.
The district’s fund balance had “a rather significant increase” from 2021 to 2022, the auditor noted. It rose from $33,483 in 2021 to $282,617 in 2022.
Mount Vernon school district accounting practices OK in all significant respects
May 25, 2023