Kershaw County auditors give district a clean opinion despite delayed federal guidance

Larry Finney, serving as auditor for the Kershaw County School District, told the board on Monday that auditors will issue an unmodified (clean) opinion for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2025. "For this year end, 06/30/2025, the district is gonna receive an unmodified opinion," Finney said, adding that the finding most stakeholders fear did not occur.

Finney said the audit timetable was affected by a federal government shutdown that delayed the Office of Management and Budget's compliance supplement, which guides auditors’ testing of federal programs. "If you will at least send a good final draft by the December 1 deadline, and then once the supplement comes out, within 30 days, we can make sure that if there's any more work we need to do, whatever needs to happen, then we can issue the final financial statement," he told the board.

Presenting highlights from the draft financial statements, Finney said the district's overall general fund balance was a little over $21 million. Of that, about $2.9 million was assigned for the 2026 budget, leaving an unassigned fund balance of roughly $18.7 million — about 15% of the general fund. Finney compared that to the board policy minimum of 12% and the State Department of Education guidance of about 8.3%.

"So you're almost 3% above your policy and, what little over 6% above what the SDE requirement is," he said, noting the fund balance plays an important cash‑flow role until property tax receipts arrive in mid to late December.

Finney attributed the year’s better‑than‑expected revenue mostly to property‑tax receipts and higher investment income, saying general fund revenues were about $10 million higher than budgeted for 2025. On the expenditure side, he said the district was roughly $4 million over budget, driven partly by ESSER program transfers and higher operations and maintenance costs.

On federal program testing, Finney said auditors reviewed USDA and Title I and found no compliance issues this year. He described a single prior‑period finding — an accounting transfer between capital projects and debt service that had not occurred as recorded in 2020 — which the auditors corrected in the current reporting and noted as resolved.

Finney also described the required management letter to the board and recommended continued use of district‑level compensating controls because staffing at individual schools makes ideal internal controls impractical. He praised the district finance team by name, saying his work is easier because of their efforts.

Finney closed by reiterating that the final financial statements will be issued once the federal supplement is available and invited questions from board members.