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Lakeland District auditor issues clean opinion; single-audit deferred pending federal guidance
Summary
Hayden Ross delivered a clean opinion on the district's financial statements and reported receipt of a $19.8 million state lump-sum for school modernization. The single-audit compliance report was delayed because the federal OMB compliance supplement for 2025 had not been finalized.
Hayden Ross auditor Tony Mattson told the Lakeland District board the firm issued a clean opinion on the district's financial statements for fiscal year 2025 and highlighted several large, one-time and ongoing items affecting the district's finances. The district ended the year with a general fund balance of about $4.3 million after $46,806,000 in general-fund revenues and $46,995,000 in expenditures, a net decrease near $189,000 that Mattson said was expected and better than the budgeted loss.
Mattson said revenues were 81.5% state-funded and 18.2% local, noting a state facility payment that reduced levy pressure: the district received a $2,375,000 facility payment in fiscal 2025 that lowered local levy receipts. He described 10-year trends showing revenues exceeded expenses in eight of the last 10 years and said the district's ending fund balance sat within the board's policy target of one to two months of expenditures (approximately $3.8 million to $7.6 million).
Mattson also reported the district qualified for and received a state lump-sum school modernization payment of $19,814,000; after interest and minor outlays, that fund showed an ending balance of roughly $20,195,000 that is available for capital projects within the scope allowed by the state.
On compliance, Mattson said the single-audit portion (required when an entity spends more than $750,000 in federal awards) could not be finalized because the federal Office of Management and Budget had not published the 2025 compliance supplement. The firm separated the financial-statement audit (issued now) from the single-audit work; once the federal supplement is published, Hayden Ross will complete the compliance testing and issue a separate report.
Board members asked for clarifications on the reports and where specific documents appeared in the packet; Mattson noted some required communications and accounting-standard updates would appear with the action-item packet. The board later moved to accept the audit report as presented.
