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Audit finds material weakness, coding and reconciliation issues in Gadsden school finances; district says cleanup underway
Summary
The district’s 2023–24 audit found one material weakness tied to reporting and multiple significant deficiencies, including miscoding of transactions, late AFR submission risk, bank-reconciliation backlogs and federal compliance test findings; staff say they have engaged a contractor and new hires to address problems.
Gadsden County School District finance staff reviewed a recently completed audit covering the year ended June 30, 2024 and said they are working through one material weakness and several significant deficiencies that auditors identified.
The audit’s single material weakness concerned reporting deficiencies, chiefly late submission of the Annual Financial Report (AFR). District staff said the AFR for 2023–24 is substantially improved compared with prior years and they are aiming to complete it by the end of the month after requesting an extension from the state.
Significant deficiencies cited by auditors included inconsistent and incorrect function/object coding of transactions, stale or missing bank reconciliations (including food-service accounts), incomplete access controls for the student-information and finance system, time-and-effort documentation for federally funded staff and at least one duplicate payment under investigation.
Why this matters: Accurate coding, reconciliations and timely reporting affect the district’s ability to track expenditures, comply with state and federal rules and to make budget decisions. Board members said they expect documentation of corrective steps and a clear timetable.
District staff told the board they have contracted finance support (referenced in the meeting as a $75,000 engagement for an outside contractor) and are hiring for a new comptroller-like position to resume timely bank reconciliations. Miss Bruner, who has led the cleanup work, said staff are retraining department personnel in correct coding practices (the state “red book” guidance) and building spreadsheets and “cheat sheets” for recurring vendors and functions to reduce inconsistent entries.
Auditors also tested federal-award compliance. The report noted a Davis-Bacon Act review (prevailing-wage compliance) that the district addressed by confirming the contractor paid prevailing wages or by making adjustments when underpayments were found. Time-and-effort logs for some grant-funded roles were missing; staff said they will add semiannual certification in Skyward for federal programs and food-service employees.
Ending: Board members asked staff to bring back a timetable for AFR completion and for policy or procedural changes to prevent recurrence. Staff said they expect to have the AFR submitted to the state by mid-October (the district had requested an extension) and to have a new reconciliation staff member begin work shortly.
