External auditors give New Haven Unified clean opinions; one adjustment noted

Charles Rley, a senior manager with audit firm Crow LLP, told the board the district’s FY 2023–24 financial and compliance audits received unmodified opinions. Rley said the firm issued clean opinions for the district’s financial statements, the federal uniform guidance audit (major programs tested included ESSER/ESF and the Child Nutrition cluster) and the state awards audit.

"Unmodified is the highest level of assurance that you can get out of an external financial and compliance audit," Rley told trustees, adding that Crow identified a single finding that required an audit adjustment related to the classification of certain fiduciary balances at the beginning of the fiscal year.

Rley also summarized the Measure M bond audits required under Proposition 39: the district reported about $21.7 million in Measure M expenditures for FY 2023–24, Crow tested approximately $9.5 million (about 44% of expenditures) and found no compliance issues in sampled transactions. As a result, Crow issued unmodified opinions on both the Measure M financial statements and the performance audit.

Separately, district finance staff (heldman, CBO) reviewed early signals from the governor’s preliminary budget. They said the COLA projection in the governor’s Jan. press event is roughly 0.5 percentage point lower than previously assumed, which reduces the district’s LCFF revenue forecast by about $500,000. Officials said the governor also proposed several one‑time literacy and TK investments; allocations and distribution formulas remain unclear and will be refined before May.

Board members asked no follow‑up questions during the audit presentation. The audit reports and the Measure M performance audit were later presented to the board for approval as part of the action items and were adopted by voice vote during the meeting.