Saint Louis Park auditors give unmodified opinion but flag bank-reconciliation weakness; board hears budget forecast

At the Jan. 28, 2025, Saint Louis Park School Board meeting, auditors reported an unmodified (clean) opinion on the district’s 2024 financial statements while identifying a material weakness in internal control over bank reconciliations and two Minnesota legal-compliance findings.

Jim Eichton, who presented on behalf of the auditing team that performed the fiscal-year 2024 audit, said the auditors implemented a new accounting standard for grouped capital assets that added about $3 million of capital assets to the district’s records. The audit also included the federal single-audit work, which reviewed approximately $3,800,000 in federal awards for the year, and selected the special-education program for federal compliance testing.

Eichton said the audit team issued an unmodified opinion on the basic financial statements and the single-audit reports but listed one material weakness and two findings in the management report. The material weakness concerned the timeliness and accuracy of monthly bank reconciliations; auditors said reconciliations were not always completed on time or recorded accurately, which weakens internal controls over financial reporting. Auditors said corrective actions were underway and credited new accounting staff with making improvements.

Two Minnesota legal-compliance findings were reported. The auditors tested 40 items for timely payment of invoices under Minnesota statute and found six of 40 were not paid within the 30-day window; auditors characterized most of those issues as documentation problems and recommended that the district document reasons for delayed payments. The auditors also noted the district failed to file an unclaimed-property report with the state commissioner of commerce for the audit year; the auditors said the district filed the report after the issue was identified and that no unclaimed property items were likely to be due.

Auditors and district staff stressed that the district had taken steps to address the findings. Patricia Magnuson, who introduced the auditors and participated in the presentation, said the district implemented a digital invoice system and had a new accounts-payable clerk and accountant; she said weekly and monthly processes and additional oversight were helping to correct the reconciliation and documentation issues.

The audit presentation included fund- and statewide-comparative information. Auditors reported general fund revenue per student of about $25,120 and expenditures per student of about $24,906 for fiscal 2024, and noted the district’s year-end fund-balance percentage was 8.3 percent (unrestricted fund balance about 7.8 percent), above the board’s 6 percent policy floor. Auditors said the district ended the year in roughly a break-even position (a net decrease of about $390,000) and that revenues came in better than expected, which helped the result. The auditors and district finance staff said the finance-advisory committee has recommended growing fund balance toward a target in the 12–15 percent range.

Eichton also highlighted capital-project activity: the district spent about $44 million from construction funds in the fiscal year and he cautioned that the business office must vet and process large volumes of construction-related invoices and contracts as projects progress.

In the meeting’s budget-forecast discussion, district finance staff said roughly two-thirds of general-fund revenue comes from state aid and about 29 percent from property taxes, and that the district’s general-fund spending is staff intensive (about 77 percent of general fund spending goes to salaries and benefits).

Staff noted enrollment trends have been declining in recent years but that the district recorded an increase this fall compared with earlier projections. District presenters said the fall enrollment was higher than projected (reported at about 4,350 students) and that the budget team will use updated enrollment and a preliminary Department of Education estimate of a 2.53 percent increase in the basic funding formula for fiscal 2026 planning. Staff warned that stagnating state funding and declining enrollment create a structural gap between revenues and the district’s staff-intensive expenditures.

Board members were reminded that some revenue sources — including voter-approved operating levies and capital levies — are tightly regulated and cannot be shifted freely among fund categories.

Votes and routine approvals at the meeting included approval of the consent agenda, approval of the board meeting agenda and the board’s second reading and approval of Policy 903 (visitor policy); each vote recorded passed 7–0.

The district did not receive any findings in the federal single-audit compliance testing and auditors said they will follow up on corrective-action plans in subsequent years.

Topics: audit, internal controls, fund balance, construction spending, enrollment and budget forecast.

Votes at a glance: - Approval of meeting agenda for Jan. 28, 2025 — Passed 7–0 (moved by Celia; second not specified in transcript). - Consent agenda (payroll, expenditures, payables, personnel, minutes, high-school trip to Thailand/Cambodia/Vietnam, and other business items) — Passed 7–0 (moved by Virginia; second not specified in transcript). - Policy 903, second reading (visitor policy) — Passed 7–0 (presented by Director Natsuko; motion/second not specified in transcript).