Auditor issues clean opinion on Caswell County Schools' 2024 financial statements, cites two control exceptions

An external audit of Caswell County Schools'financial statements for the year ended June 30, 2024, resulted in a clean, unmodified opinion, the district's auditor reported at the board meeting.

The auditor said, "we believe these financial statements accurately reflect the net position and the fund balance for Caswell County Schools as of 06/30/2024. It's considered a clean, unmodified opinion." The auditor also summarized fund balances and highlighted two findings in the compliance letters: (1) account reconciliations and (2) a reversed transfer that moved local (unrestricted) funds into federal (restricted) accounts when recording indirect-cost allocations.

At the meeting the auditor walked board members through the statements and key numbers: the general fund had a fund balance of $1,402,000, a decrease of $361,000 from the prior year; the district's other local special revenue fund held $1,487,000 (an increase of $540,000); together local governmental fund balances totaled about $2.8 million. Capital outlay funds were reported at about $1.1 million (a decrease of $79,000). The state public school fund was reported at roughly $21 million and county funding to the general fund at about $3 million. The federal grants fund totaled about $3.7 million, of which approximately $2.2 million consisted of COVID-related Education Stabilization Funds (ESF) that were received in 2024.

The auditor described the two exceptions as operational-control items rather than lost dollars. On account reconciliations, auditors said more journal entries were required to clean up balances at year-end and recommended improvements to the year-end close process and reconciliations. On the transfer, the auditor explained that the indirect-cost posting was reversed so that local (unrestricted) money was moved into federal (restricted) funds on the books. "No dollars were lost," the auditor said, but the recording direction was incorrect and should be corrected in procedure to avoid future mis-postings. The auditor noted the district still complied with applicable state and federal program requirements and that no instances of funds spent out of accordance were found in the testing of state and federal grants.

On business-type funds (child nutrition and childcare), auditors reported cash and cash equivalents for child nutrition of about $240,000 (a decrease of $40,000) and investments of $248,000. Food sales had declined ($104,000, down $88,000), but federal meal reimbursements increased to about $1.663 million (up $231,000), driven by higher participation; food costs were reported at about $818,000 (up $150,000). The childcare enterprise fund held about $47,000.

The auditor recommended continuing improvements to year-end closing and reconciliation processes and noted that the district's larger compliance picture for major federal and state programs was sound for the year audited.