Audit presentations: WLRN, Foundation of New Education Initiatives, MECCA and 50 charter schools receive clean opinions

The Audit and Budget Advisory Committee heard a series of audit presentations on Feb. 4 covering public-broadcasting operations, foundation and association financial statements and 50 charter-school audits; auditors issued unmodified (clean) opinions and the committee approved the reports unanimously.

Anthony Brunson and Leslie Harden summarized the operational audit of WLRN, the district-licensed public radio and TV operation. "We have completed the operational the audit of the operations WLRN ..." Brunson said, and the audit yielded an unmodified opinion. Auditors reported capital-asset purchases in the audit cycle of roughly $601,000 and a strong net-asset position exceeding $10.6 million. Revenue grew from about $4.7 million in 2023 to over $6.0 million in 2024 with major support coming from grants including the Florida Department of Education, public broadcasting and Miami-Dade County grants.

Manny Alvarez and Octavio Verdeja presented the financial statements and independent audit report for the Foundation of New Education Initiatives. "The most important part about the audit is that it is a clean opinion," Alvarez said; the foundation reported total revenues of about $5.4 million, expenses of about $5.2 million and a modest positive change in net assets.

Juliana Delmas, audit partner at HLB Gravier, presented the Magnet Educational Choice Association (MECCA) audit. Delmas said MECCA produced a clean audit opinion and noted cash and short-term investments as the largest balance sheet items. The audit showed a positive change in net assets and improvements from prior deficits.

Mike Hernandez of the Office of Management and Compliance Audits presented 50 charter-school audited financial statements for fiscal year ending 06/30/2024. Hernandez said 44 of the 50 charter schools had no significant fiscal issues; six contained either deficit net position, a deficit fund balance or a management-letter finding. "None of these conditions rose to the level of a financial emergency or a deteriorating financial condition," Hernandez said, and auditors provided clean opinions.

The committee treated the presentations as action items and approved each set of audited financial statements unanimously.

In other procurement action, the committee discussed reissuing a request for proposals for the end-of-program audit (GLB) after a prior award did not proceed to completion. ABAC appointed committee member Hunter Johnson to serve on the external selection committee for that reissued RFP.

Ending: The committee accepted the audit reports and directed staff to proceed with the RFP reissuance and selection committee participation.