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Audit Objective

Determine whether District officials effectively managed the District’s financial condition.

Key Findings

District officials can do more to effectively manage the District’s financial condition.

• District officials overestimated appropriations by a total of more than $2.1 million from 2016-17 through 2018-19 and annually appropriated fund balance that was not used to finance operations.
• Unrestricted fund balance ranged between 18.5 and 31.1 percent of ensuing years’ appropriations, exceeding the 4 percent statutory limit, and the District’s last six independent audit reports contained a finding related to the District’s unrestricted fund balance being in excess of the statutory limit.
• District officials did not develop a comprehensive multiyear financial plan.

Key Recommendations

• Develop and adopt budgets that include reasonable estimates for appropriations and the amount of fund balance that will be used to fund operations.
• Develop a plan to reduce surplus fund balance to comply with the statutory limit and use excess funds in a manner beneficial to taxpayers.
• Develop a comprehensive multiyear financial plan.

District officials generally agreed with our recommendations and have initiated, or indicated they planned to initiate corrective action.