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District auditor reports likely clean FY25 opinion; final compliance report delayed by OMB guidance
Summary
Barbicking Thornton’s audit manager Alex Frank told the finance committee auditors expect an unmodified opinion for fiscal 2025 with no significant deficiencies; issuance of a final compliance report is pending an OMB compliance-supplement delay, and the committee agreed to recommend board approval of the draft audit Dec. 2.
Alex Frank, audit manager with Barbicking Thornton, told the Springfield Township SD finance committee on Nov. 19 that auditors expect to issue an unmodified (clean) opinion on the district’s fiscal 2025 financial statements and found no significant deficiencies or material weaknesses during testing.
Frank said the firm conducted standard risk-based procedures, including inquiries of staff and board members, analytics and substantive testing, and sample-based internal-control testing. "For fiscal year 25, we as of now . . . have an unmodified or clean audit opinion on all reports in the audit as well as no significant deficiencies or material weaknesses in internal controls that we saw during our testing," he said.
Frank also reviewed federal-single-audit requirements, noting that spending more than $750,000 in federal funds triggers a compliance audit. He said testing of federal awards (IDEA and Title I) will receive a clean compliance opinion, but the Office of Management and Budget’s compliance supplement — the guidance auditors use to finalize federal-compliance testing — has been delayed. "Without a finalized compliance supplement, we can't issue a final audit report on the compliance," Frank said, adding the firm is treating the current draft as "about a 99% final report" until the supplement is released.
Miss Green told the committee she plans to move the FY25 audit forward to the board for approval in draft form at the Dec. 2 regular meeting, with a commitment to pull the item if any material changes emerge after the compliance supplement is issued. Committee members present agreed with that approach.
The auditors identified a number of adjustments to capital-asset depreciation dating back one to two years that required a restatement to the opening depreciation balance. Frank described a roughly $4 million restatement and said the change trued up depreciation to the appropriate balances as of June 30.
Frank also summarized long-term liabilities reported on the statements — a pension liability reported near $82–83 million and OPEB liabilities — and clarified these entries are accounting presentations of the district’s share of statewide pension and retiree-health obligations. He said the numbers are presented under current accounting standards and are not necessarily cash obligations the district will directly pay.
Next steps: the finance committee will recommend that the full board approve the draft FY25 audit at its Dec. 2 meeting, and auditors will finalize the compliance portion once OMB releases the supplement. If the compliance supplement requires material changes, Miss Green said she will remove the approval item from the Dec. 2 agenda and communicate the change to the board.
