Caddo Parish audit yields clean opinion; auditors flag control weaknesses at school sites

Caddo Parish School Board members on March 4 heard that an independent audit of the district’s fiscal year ending June 30, 2024, received an unmodified (clean) opinion but identified one recovered misappropriation and multiple procedural exceptions.

Michael Gould, the engagement partner from accounting firm Carr Riggs & Ingram, told the Insurance and Finance Committee the audit team issued an unmodified opinion and found no significant deficiencies, material weaknesses or material instances of noncompliance in the financial statements. "We issued an unmodified audit opinion, which is a clean audit opinion. It's the best that you can get," Gould said.

The audit did identify one finding, which auditors said had already been detected by the district’s internal audit department: a $780 misappropriation at a school activity fund linked to cheer funds that the auditor said was repaid to the school. In addition to the financial-statement audit, the firm performed a single audit of federal award programs (including Title I and special education) and reported no compliance findings for those major programs.

Nut graf: The report affirms overall financial reporting quality while pointing to operational weaknesses at the school level and in statewide agreed‑upon procedures. Those operational items — timely bank reconciliations, deposit timeliness, documentation of reimbursements and training records — are standard internal‑control practices the auditor recommended the district address.

Gould summarized the agreed‑upon‑procedures exceptions the team reported to management: one discrepancy between class-size rollbook counts and state reporting; four personnel records where reported experience levels did not match personnel files; no written policy documenting completeness checks for collections; no written contracting policy specifying standard terms, legal review and monitoring; and one out of five master bank reconciliations that was not performed within two months of statement close or lacked documented review.

Auditors also flagged school-level segregation-of‑duties weaknesses for cash handling, four exceptions where deposits over $100 were not made within one business day as required by state law, three of five travel reimbursements lacking a documented business or public purpose, one of five payroll attendance records lacking supervisory review, and one instance where required harassment-training documentation was not on file. The district’s required statewide report on harassment cases was prepared but not by the February 1 deadline, the auditors said.

On district financial results, the auditors reported increases in assets and net position alongside large long‑term liabilities. The report showed total assets up by about $63 million, a net position increase of about $100 million for the year and revenue growth of roughly 5 percent year over year. The audit noted a $14 million increase in ESSER (federal COVID relief) revenue recognized during the year.

Gould and the audit materials said total long‑term debt presented was about $1.5 billion, the other post‑employment benefits (OPEB) liability exceeded $1 billion, and the net pension liability was about $388 million. The auditors said the large swings in those liabilities were driven largely by actuarial assumptions and changes in discount rates.

The audit also reported positive trends in self‑insured liabilities: the accrued claims liability for workers’ compensation and medical/prescription claims decreased to about $8.5 million from about $10 million the prior year.

Committee members and staff praised the finance and internal‑audit teams during the presentation and said efforts are underway to centralize bookkeeping functions across schools to address some of the procedural exceptions the auditors identified.

Ending: Auditors left the committee with no outstanding management letter, and district staff said they will follow up on the agreed‑upon‑procedures items and the single finding already addressed by internal audit. The committee moved next to a separate financial update on legislative authority for a local sales tax increase.