Lamar CISD told to return state funds after TEA attendance audit finds coding errors

The Lamar Consolidated Independent School District Board of Trustees received a report Jan. 23 on a Texas Education Agency limited-scope attendance audit covering the 2021–22 school year that identified multiple student-record coding errors and will reduce the district’s state funding by $432,231 before accounting for tuition already collected.

The audit found five problem areas, including kindergarten enrollments for students who were under the state’s September 1 minimum age, early‑education students miscoded in the district’s Student Information System and bilingual/ESL students reported without required parent-consent indicators. Brian Moore, who presented the district’s audit response, said the district had collected about $156,000 in tuition for children enrolled in an employee preschool program (PEGASUS) and that TEA will deduct the reduced funding from future state aid; Moore said, “They deduct it from the aid that they…