District audit finds unqualified opinion; general fund balance down $4.4 million from prior year

The district's audited financial statements for the year ended June 30, 2024, received an unqualified (clean) opinion, district staff reported at the Jan. 27 meeting.

Staff presenting the audit said the auditors also issued unqualified opinions on compliance testing related to federal and state revenues. The presentation noted one overexpenditure in the grants fund in the instruction category; staff flagged this as a compliance detail in the auditors' report.

In the audited statements, staff drew attention to the district's general fund balance. The presenter said fund balance was approximately $13,000,000 at June 30, 2024, which is about $4,400,000 less than the balance reported at June 30, 2023. The presenter said the $13 million figure met the board's policy threshold at the time of the report (cited as roughly 10.3%), but staff reiterated an earlier warning that the district is projecting a continued spend-down and anticipates being out of policy by the end of the current fiscal year.

The presenter encouraged directors to contact finance staff with questions and said the full audit report (about 100 pages) had been posted that day. The audit presentation also included a separate audit and transmittal letter for Lake Grove Park; presenters noted the park's fund balance decline was expected because of capital project spending, and they also described an accounting presentation error in an early draft related to a district loan to the park. Staff said the loan (reflected as a receivable of $580,000) is properly a long-term receivable in the entity-wide statements and that auditors had corrected the presentation in the final documents.

The audit presentation was informational; no board action was required.