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Finance staff say auditors working to ‘bring this in for landing’; AFR and several federal grants still being closed out
Summary
District finance staff told the school board they are still reconciling accounts and responding to auditor and state requests, have drawn down Head Start funds, and moved seven of about 21 outstanding grant items — but the annual financial report remains unfinished and some federal draws remain frozen.
Sharon Brunner, a member of the district finance team, told the school board the finance office is continuing a multilevel cleanup of accounting records and grant files and is working “very closely with the auditor so we can bring this in for landing. We really, really want to bring it in for landing.”
Brunner said auditors are in-house and the finance team is hunting down missing documentation, tracking down emails and records from a year or more ago and correcting coding so amounts roll up to the correct categories on the AFR (annual financial report). “So it's not just any one area of cleanup. It's several areas of cleanup all happening simultaneously,” she said.
Why it matters: the board learned some federal and state draws are contingent on completing prior-year final reports. Brunner said the district started with a list of about 21 items the state requested for final documents and has cleared seven; one recent drawdown from Head Start was completed. “They were frozen, but we were able to make our drawdown before they froze,” she said. Until the outstanding prior-year reports are accepted by the state, the district cannot draw certain current-year funds.
Board members and staff also discussed account reconciliations and where cash is held. Brunner said the district has two investment accounts at the SBA that she expects to reconcile; Capital City Bank accounts have many nightly-wire transactions and are still being processed through about October and November. A separate Centennial account also exists. A budget-column correction described in the meeting involved a negative $32,000,000 entry that had been put in the wrong place and was adjusted, Brunner said.
Human-resources and benefits questions were handled separately. Staff identified Melvin (first name not provided) as the benefits contact and asked employees with coverage or deduction questions to start with him. “If you have a question about your deduction for a benefit coverage, that's Mr. Melvin. He handles the benefits,” the finance team told the board.
On federal grants more broadly, Brunner said the district is proceeding cautiously: some grants are on hold pending federal or state decisions and the district is “hanging tight” on discretionary moves. She said summer-program planning is underway but specific funding allocations for individual summer activities were not finalized and remain “a question mark.”
The finance staff asked for time to complete the work rather than closing the books prematurely. “We could just close out, and it would be ugly numbers, and it would be a whole mess,” Brunner said, adding that the district and state agreed to take the time to dig in and correct what they can.
Board members asked for ongoing updates and monthly reports that show balances in the Capital City, SBA and Centennial accounts; staff confirmed the balances will be included in monthly reporting going forward.
Ending: Brunner said the front-end cleanup is the work slowing the AFR and that once grant items and coding are cleared, preparing the AFR should proceed more quickly. Staff pledged to keep the superintendent and board informed when the draft cost report and AFR are ready for submission.
