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Audit Objective

Determine whether the Williamsville Central School District (District) Board of Education (Board) and District officials properly managed fund balance and reserves.

Key Findings

The Board and District officials did not properly manage the District’s fund balance and reserves. As a result, the District levied more taxes than needed to fund operations. The Board and District officials:

• Consistently overestimated general fund appropriations from 2018-19 through 2021- 22 by a total of $47 million and appropriated $22 million of fund balance that was not needed or used.
• Adopted annual budgets during the same period that gave the impression that the District would have operating deficits totaling $38 million when it actually had operating surpluses totaling $40 million, for a difference totaling $78 million.
• Were not fully transparent with the public regarding the funding and replenishment of all reserves.

Key Recommendations

• Develop budgets that include reasonable appropriation estimates and only appropriate fund balance when needed.
• Include provisions in adopted budgets for funding and replenishing reserves.

District officials generally disagreed with our findings but indicated that they planned to initiate corrective action. Appendix B includes our comments on issues raised in the District’s response.