Auditors find high compliance for adult virtual credits but flag inconsistent KSDE audit practices and weak written policies

Legislative Post Audit told the committee that nearly all adult virtual school credits submitted for state funding complied with statutory criteria, but auditors concluded the Kansas State Department of Education’s (KSDE) audit process for those credits is not consistently applied and lacks sufficient written policies.

"We found that 99% of the credits the districts submitted appeared to comply with the criteria set in statute," Heidi Zimmerman, principal auditor with Legislative Post Audit, said in her presentation. She told the committee auditors reviewed five districts for the 2022 school year and five districts for 2023 (one district was in both samples), and that about 55 credits out of nearly 5,900 reviewed did not comply with statute.

The audit asked two questions: whether the credits districts submitted for adult virtual school funding complied with state funding rules, and whether KSDE’s audit process adequately ensures funded credits comply with state law and is applied consistently across districts. For the first question, auditors concluded compliance was generally high. For the second, LPA found the department’s audit process inadequate in several ways.

LPA identified multiple policy and practice gaps at KSDE: no written…