CFO warns board audit may receive a disclaimed opinion; staff working to clean books before March filing
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Summary
District Chief Financial Officer David Curran briefed the board on FY2024 audit challenges, 16 audit findings, a March 1 state filing deadline, and options including a possible disclaimed opinion while staff continue reconciling accounts and migrating to Skyward.
David, the district's chief financial officer, updated the Woodland Park School District RE-2 board on the status of the fiscal-year audit and the district's corrective actions.
Curran said auditors reported 16 findings for FY2024 and that the district has worked to correct those items over the past seven to eight months, focusing on producing a clean trial balance for the auditor. He described operational difficulties, including staffing turnover in finance ("eight people" in the CFO role over four years was cited) and two legacy accounting systems that the district is consolidating into Skyward.
There is a March 1 deadline to file the audit report with the state, Curran said. He explained the auditor could issue a "disclaimed opinion" that comments on the district's balance sheet while declining to opine on the income statement if certain supporting documentation cannot be completed in time. "If we continue to move forward with the full audit, they would be there to earn additional income," Curran said, describing that state auditors had advised the district to post the available opinion and move forward to next year.
Curran described substantive corrective steps: catching up bank reconciliations (15 accounts and months of backlog), correcting payroll and journal-entry setup errors, migrating from multiple legacy systems to Skyward to improve controls, and restoring lost or inaccessible resources (including recovering the district radio account, which he estimated saved about $141,000 in replacement costs). He said some control errors appeared to come from a period with no CFO in place and emphasized the team's focus on producing a reliable audit.
Board members asked whether a disclaimed or qualified opinion would trigger state sanctions; Curran said it should not automatically place the district on probation with the Colorado Department of Education if the district documents the condition and communicates with the state. He also described discussions with the auditor and with the state's accounting contacts about the best path forward.
Curran closed by saying management is implementing many of the forensic team's recommendations and that the board will see updated policies and administrative controls, including CASB policy reviews and administrative process changes, in the coming months.