Finding Text
Criteria: The School operates its education programs with grants from the federal and state government. Any advanced grant funds held by the School must be kept intact and in allowable cash accounts.
Condition: In prior years, the School incurred over-expenditures in their federal funds requiring support entries to be made from the general fund. The general fund did not have the available net assets to cover these costs and as such has reported deficits in their unrestricted net assets for the prior three years. They did incur a deficit of $5,724 in the current year as they wrote off all remaining bad debts of a loan program also started in 2019. The remaining deficit in the general fund is $269,778 at June 30, 2023. Context: In the prior years the School was forced to obtain debt to help fund these over-expenditures. They also had quit making their payroll tax deposits during FY2019 as well, due to the cash flow issues. This all created a situation that the School is still dealing with. The only recourse to correct this situation is to generate income in their general fund to create positive fund balance. They have cleared all debt with the Internal Revenue Service and have a remaining balance on their cash flow loan of only $13,774. Questioned Costs: None noted. Cause: Lack of oversight and monitoring of budget and their payroll tax responsibilities in prior years resulted in significant penalties and interest charges by the Internal Revenue Service for late payments and late filings as well as the over-expenditures. The institution of an employee loan fund also added to the problem as procedures established over the loan fund by the board were not followed and there were significant bad debts incurred in 2019 and 2020. Effect: The School has spent the last three years paying off the debts incurred in prior years. They continued to carry one operating loan at year end with a balance of $13,774 for which they are making monthly payments from their general fund. The School did not have revenue in excess of expenditures in the general funds in the current year due to the bad debt write offs of $7,129 of the remaining bad loans. Identification of Prior Audit Finding: This finding is a repeat of a prior year finding 2022-001. Recommendation: We recommend the School continue to implement their plan to liquidate all remaining debt from the general fund and that they investigate new funding sources or maximizing their existing sources of revenue. We also recommend they continue a vigilant oversight of all budgets of the School to ensure this situation does not occur again. Views of Responsible Officials: The views of management are included in the corrective action plan beginning on page 40.