001Okay, good evening everyone. Today is Wednesday, January 14th. This is our January finance meeting. I would like to introduce everyone that's here tonight. We have Dr. Layman, we have Mr. Piro, we have Miss Allen, Mrs. Depay, Dr. Peek, and Mr. Stanowitz. He's our auditor. He's going to be here tonight. And the first item on our agenda is the presentation of the annual comprehensive financial report. And that will be you, right, Mr. >> Mr. Brad? >> Okay. Very happy to be here. For the record, my name is Jerry St. partner in the certified public accounting firm of Samuel Klein and Company. Um, I work out of the three-hole office. Um, my primary area of expertise is in government entities, m municipalities, school districts, fire districts, and sewage authorities. Exciting. Um, so we're here tonight to present
002the audit. Now, little history for those who may not be familiar with the process. We're appointed by the board to audit the management of the finances of the district. Okay, that would involve superintendent and Laura Allen and the the staffs that work underneath here, but mostly in the area of of the finance department. Okay. A lot of different things we get into though. Some overlap a little bit. So, we're appointed by the board to do the audit. Now, to give you a history here, um the audit is a sample. Okay? And so, you know, you're going to get I don't want to bounce around. You're in fact they were delivered this morning. Glory. The order is actually due tomorrow. It was filed yesterday. Okay. And uh the hard copies, it was filed with the state
003through the computer system. Hard copies were dropped off here, but also too, she has a digital copy that she can forward to the board as well, so they can look at that in advance or take this beautiful uh 250 page document and study every inch of it. Okay. So, and what we did was we we did the going backwards. We had an exit conference Monday morning at 10:00 to discuss the findings in the report. Okay. But prior to that we do have discussions with the business administrator and her staff about different things that we need clarification on. Okay. So what we do is um we get the records that is we get the the bank reconciliations the general ledgers the revenue reports the expenditure reports and the revenue the expenditure reports have a lot of
004different details. There's condensed items and then there's real detail items. The detail items that were printed out would go up to the ceiling. Uh thank God for the computers. Okay. And years ago, we used to get the full run that went up there. We get the general ledgers, okay? And we get a lot of supporting documentation that we that we ask for, most of which is is invoices and expenditures. That's the meat of the audit. We also do the payroll piece, which we run samples. We don't just have hazardly. When I started this business, you were allowed to do what was called a hazard sample. You're not allowed to do that anymore. You have to do a statistical sample. Okay? So, we run statistical numbers. We use random number generators. It's all it's not rocket
005science, but it is kind of scientific because we have to do it that way. You can't leave yourself vulnerable to say, "Well, why didn't you pick that item versus that item?" Because then they they might think you have a vested interest in one of them. So, everything is sampled. Okay. We start off in the middle of August. Uh we look at the food the school the school activity funds. We want to get those done so they can be back into school. So when the kids get back in September, well most districts in September, when they get back in September, the student activity funds are available for them. The the different clubs and sports teams run their little activities and they they have dispersements that they have to make related to that. Most important thing about
006that is is that well, first of all, you're running a lot of money through those accounts, most especially the high school. Okay? So it has to be done and and handled by the proper person. Okay? And also too, um it has to be looked at by the business office before we get a hold of it. And yeah, we always emphasize that that the presumption and because it's such a tiny piece of the overall business uh operation here, we we always request that the business department pre- audit it before we get it. Okay? Because if if again if we find something that you people don't catch that your people then it's a different problem. If you catch it and resolve it, it's okay. Okay? So yeah, the high school activity fund is runs heavy. But the
007the emphasize that we ask the business people to emphasize to the individual schools is that it can only be used for student activities, not for a refrigerator or the teacher room, faculty room. Okay? So, and also too, we tell them do not leave cash laying around. Okay? If it's it's vulnerable, if it's laying around, we don't want to have to get involved in police reports and things like just don't let cash lay around. Okay? So, we start there. Then we get into the ASSA audit. We verify the kid count. And what we do in all my districts is we do 100%. We make sure every kid is counted off the attendance register. The attendance package that you have is able to isolate the kids on October 15th. Okay? That's what you focus on. And I
008don't know what other firms do, but we spend a lot of time on making sure that I call it the kid count that the attendance count is is proper. We also do a tie into the DRTS which is the district report of transport students and that that ties in directly to Monroe because Mono is more rural and there's a lot of kids taking the bus. So that has to be correct as well. We also spend time we look at the IEPs to make sure we're not qualified to make a determination on the IEPs if the kid is classified properly. We're only looking to see that the child is classified. We're not do that. So, as long as it's classified and we counted those and the what's her name? Jean. >> The woman. >> Yeah. >>
009The woman. Yeah. She's very very she's in a different location than he Yeah. Very very cooperative. Okay. In terms of the IEPs are critical that ties into a lot of your special ed revenue, ties into your title one and all that other stuff. So, that worked out nicely. We then have one of the secretaries I train to prepare the samples. In other words, she does the random number. We select individual uh transactions of the payroll. Okay. And u I think we've been running about 100. There's so many people that work here. The standard audit sample is in my opinion too small. So I doubled the standard audit sample because it's just too big. You're paying what you need 25,000 paychecks a year just to look at 60 in my opinion is not enough. Okay? And
010I've been doing it a long time and I'll argue with anybody who wants to about it. I just think it needs more. We also verify the par this the salary of your CEO and your CFO. Okay? Because we we'd be remiss if we didn't. Then we also verified the payroll person. You never know. And you're speaking of payroll too. We run the sample. Um prior to this, the gentleman, God rest his soul, who worked down there, he set the whole system up to be almost foolproof, okay, and very easily audited. There's a good audit trail. Okay. um just how it was under the prior going back to Wayne Holiday way back. They set the payroll department up real nicely. Okay. And our guys go down there and the only thing they really have to look
011up is um well we audit the base pays. We make sure everyone is um paid in accordance with their base pay. But every pay now a lot of the employees get extra pay for maybe class coverage, cafeteria coverage. Uh I know there's a three or four times a year they get their um their extra pay for coaching and student activities. So we we do run a check on that. Okay. But we do run a sample on on that many people to make sure that everything is done right. And if the system is set up properly and you have the right people in place, there should not be any problems. Okay? And my experience here is that we've never really had any problems. We had one blip when the payroll company went out of business. Okay?
012And that was fixed real quick. Okay? So the payroll worked out very nicely. The payroll uh withholdings we found to be proper. We do verify the health benefits withholding which by the way as you'll soon find out as the finance committee are becoming critical. Um and uh so we check on that part-time overtime test had real good results. Uh we had no errors. Okay. Um the woman that stepped in her worked here prior to that. She worked down in in South Jersey somewhere and I guess she liked it here and was it puts up with the commute and that's okay because you you folks benefit from that. The payroll worked out nicely. The payroll deductions get paid timely. Okay. Um we didn't notice any lateness. As soon as you pay the pay pay the taxes
013then you can't get in trouble. It's when you pay the pay withhold the taxes and forget to hit send to the IRS. I've had client school districts do that and the IRS will only let you slide twice. Okay, the third time. Uhuh. And the penalties are big, especially in a district like this. Okay, so uh payroll is done. Then we do expenditures. Now expenditures, there's really four basic things we look at. Okay, we run samples transaction. We call a transaction test to make sure you're processing properly. We also do what's called a significant item test. We look at bigger dollars that didn't come up in the first sample. Okay. So in all in all situations though all your dispersements were properly documented proper invoices. Um charge to the correct budget account. Okay that's critical because
014now I know you'll be looking more because of the economic conditions everywhere and because of this board you're looking at stuff closely. You want to know that if says electric was 2 billion it's 2 million. Okay. And you want to make sure that that's all proper because if if there's a blip or something gets miscatategorized, then you're making a decision on something based on not so great data. You don't have that problem. So item three is charge to the correct fiscal year. So anything that's incurred prior to June 30th, okay, that wasn't paid that goes on the July or August bill is cut off properly. It's last year's charge even though it's dispersed this year. We good results with that, too. Okay. Okay. And then the last thing was pretty much you're in compliance with
015the public school contracts law. Okay. Very little anymore in the school district has to be bid because most of the stuff you buy is under is under a previously negotiated state contract between the manufacturers and uh like for example the Ed services commission does a lot of that stuff on everyone's behalf. But as we talked about the other day, sometimes you can find a better deal than these poems. Okay. And then and then maybe you have to bid. But the the beauty of not bidding is you don't have to write specs. Years ago before all this stuff was created that people were spending hours and days writing specifications on stuff to buy 10,000 pencils and it was not good. You bid really stuff like construction which you kind of have to okay unless it's available
016under state contract which happens. Some of the roof some of the clients I have roof jobs and another one built an entire preschool under a state contract um project that they had around arranged. So, so all that was good. Okay. We also when we we look at bills from uh July 1, July of August, September, right through the end of we look at bill to make sure there's nothing that slips through the cracks, okay, that should have been charged back that was not set up in your account payable. That works out nicely as well. Um, every now and then you get, you haven't had that here, but you get somebody who uh and I had it happen. They left the intention left the bill in a draw till after we left. Okay? and then it
017slips through. But we catch them the next year when we do that. So, but we haven't had that problem with people because nobody wants to lose their job or pension for doing something silly. Okay? And by the way, speaking of silly, you don't have a Monontlair situation here. I don't know if you're aware of that. Okay? Because all the bills are paid properly and timely. And you have they did not live within their budget. Okay? Um that's part of the problem. They didn't live within their budget and who knows who was monitoring who there. Um the auditor doesn't really come in on an interim basis. So the BA maybe didn't keep the superintendent properly advised about the bills, but I I don't know what happened there and I don't care what happened. I'm not the
018auditor there. So I'm happy about that. So okay, so payroll was good, expenditures were good. Revenues are easy to audit because what your bulk of your revenue unfortunately is tax levy and it's easy it's easy to audit. You get your state, it's not really state aid. You get your special transportation aid and your special ed aid. Okay. They're really more like along the lines of reimbursements. They're not really a And I know I know the district's been struggling >> Yes. >> with that for a long time. >> Yes. >> I think Wayne Holidayiday could write his master's thesis on challenging it. But um yeah, so we the revenues are easy to audit and I think you had a real good year too with your interest earnings. Although a lot of times you think a lot
019of money is here, but the money's in and out. Okay. It doesn't sit long. So what we have is then based on our results most important that and if you just need to know this if you're sitting on a board you might sit on other boards okay and if the auditor is not telling you this he should or she should your general ledger has these different accounts cash receivables you work your way down they're in agreement with the underlying detail most importantly cash your bank reconciliations agree to the general ledger okay anything short of that is not acceptable. That has always been the history here uh as far as I've I've known. Okay. So that's m major importance. So cash is lined up properly, expenses are properly handled, payroll is properly handled, your assess came
020in uh nicely as well. Um the rest of the audit report now you're going to get a two documents, a thin document and a thick document. Don't go by this. This is our internal thing. You're going to get a leather bound copy of a report that's really the board, the business office. It's really their document. The only thing inside of it that belongs to us is the independent auditor's opinion, which might get to the right chase here. Um, the independent auditor's opinion uh is unmodified, meaning the records as presented by your business person here uh Laura and present fairly the statement of finances of the district as of June 30th, 2025. That's really the goal of the the audit and that is to verify the numbers. Uh we get appointed by you to verify their
021numbers. Now it's not proper for me to say because I don't formally say because you have x amount of dollars in fund balance. Okay? I'm not saying you're in great shape. I'm just here to verify the numbers. Okay? Because there's no district in great shape because >> the way it works if you're in great shape statutes then they pull the money. For example, excess surplus. If you have excess surplus, you have to appropriate the next a good budget year. It's not like you can keep it. You have you have to give it back to the taxpayers. That's how that's how it's structured. That's how it works. So, we verified the numbers as presented. Okay? And we'll get to that. So, what I've given you is a synopsis of various pages that you will get in
022this document. Okay? There's two pieces to what we're doing here. So, this is the independent table. based on our our testing we u it's broken down management's responsibility they give us the records the order's responsibility we test them and give you an opinion okay on page two under opinions it says the indep in our opinion the independent order refers to but present fairly in all material space the financial position of government of the business and business type of duties in each major fund of the district okay there's other items in here that talk about the different items that are contained within the audit report. It's all let's say boilerplate standard required wording. But the bottom line is when you go through all the all the the wording is that you have a you have a
023clean opinion. 30 years ago it was called an unqualified opinion. Now they changed it's unmodified. Okay, just for the record, if your opinion were to be modified, okay, I would have been meeting with this committee a lot sooner. And the way the DOE works, if you get a modified opinion, they have the right to send a monitor into your district, okay, at at your expense. Okay? So, we don't have that problem. There was a fight years ago when the pension data wasn't released timely. Districts were auditors were issuing reports without the pension data, which created a modified opinion, which then the DOE had the right to come in and run your district for you at your expense. We we waited it out. We did issue some reports late. we were waiting out because we don't
024want to give you a modified opinion. It's not fair to you. It's not fair to your taxpayers. It's not fair to your administration. So, the independent audit opinion was dated last Friday. Okay. Um and by the way, the real due date by statute is December 5th. They extended it and this not extended because the federal government was in shutdown and they have these things called compliance documents. you get federal money and there's certain things we have to look at when you get federal money most especially in the area of your food service. Well, it turned out that the delay ended. They released the compliance supplements and the funny part was nothing changed. They thought under the new administration there'd be significant changes but they didn't filter through yet. I think maybe next year there might
025be but it mainly in the area title one and IDA which there's not much you could do with that. So the delay was caused by that and then there was a problem to be honest with you. The assembly passed an extension okay not a permanent change in the due date of the audit to January 15th. The assembly passed it. The senate passed it. The governor needed everything. Okay. And then the department of ed who had the year the governor said no we want everything due December 5th. Here's the problem we run into. Okay. I think we discussed this the other day. So a year ago the reports were due Dece January 15th. They were filed on time. So then they come along and they try to change it to help the auditors out because information
026gets released to us later and later every year and it's hard to get the December 5th deadline. We haven't issued this December 5 bit since before CO started. Okay. And that's what caused a lot of the delays. So what happens is it's hard for any business to make up 40 days. We had to make up 40 days in 10 and a half months which is why we end up down to the wire. I mean, we always got the road done early and fast, but it it's hard to it's hard to make up 40. I don't care what business it is, you can't make up 40 days in 10 and a half months. And the problem we run to is someone could say, "Well, you can pay overtime." Well, our contracts don't provide for you you
027to pay us overtime. Okay? So, we we had to stick by the whole process. So, also too, we wait for information related to your TPAF pensions and your PS pensions and your TPAF health benefits, which don't usually get released until sometime in like October. Okay. So, we caught up. Everything was done. The audit work was substantially complete before Christmas. The a first version of your [clears throat] sunk, which is an electronic version, it's electronic version of the C1, which we'll talk about, that was issued. We had to reissue it because there's questions on that related to the federal monies that you get that we couldn't answer at the time. So now that's all been filed. You got a confirmation. Okay, good. So So that that's really what happened. So I don't know where they're going
028with it next year. Um but I think this will be the first time in like a year that I'll be caught up by tomorrow night. So but you guys you're all filed. The next document is the C1 exhibit which is a summary of all your revenue and expenses within your general fund. It doesn't include debt service. It doesn't include anything that goes through your grants like special revenue fund meaning title 1 2 3 4 um idea and then the beauty of this too is that all those grants you got between 2020 and 24 the serve the co they were paying for everybody. I mean, you're happy to get the bonding, but boy, it caused a whole lot of extra work and time, and I think a lot of places are happy it's gone. I mean,
029it helped to a degree, but so this ear document shows your revenues. Now, you're also going to see these on [clears throat] behalf revenues, okay? The on behalf revenues, okay, are monies that don't really go through your books. They go from the department of education to the treasury department to finance your TPAF members health benefits pension. Okay. And some non-contriatory insurance. Okay. And also to what does is this the teachers TF share of social security comes through your record. So but that's reimbured too. So you have about uh $30 million of revenue and expense that's reflected here. The DOE and the feds want to see what it really costs to run your district. That's why we're required to put it on as a revenue on behalf revenue and an expense, an onm expense. You'll see
030that on on C1. Okay. Now, and you'll see it looks like you collected a lot more money than you did, but you don't have to budget. You could ever budget for it. Okay. So, the other expenditures we work our way through um all tie back to your records. Okay? There's no budge factor here or anything like that. It all ties right in. Uh if you keep looking through, you'll see there are some big areas of expense. Um and the most popular of which other than teacher salaries, quite frankly, is health benefits. Um which I know everybody's struggling with. >> Just >> one of my districts, I asked the VA what the husband and wife and kids family plan >> 71,000. >> I mean, I don't know. >> 71,000. >> Family plan. Oh yeah, better be
031a good plan. >> Do you stage then? >> I don't know what what it was, but I was just curious. >> We circumvent that fight. We only hire single people. >> We don't single 22 year old guys, girls. So, okay. So, if you go to C1, page 10 of 12, you'll see your benefit section there and you'll see the offset for the on behalf. But your health benefits expense was 23.4 4 million last year. >> I see it. >> And then you have your on behalf. Okay. Keep keep rocking and rolling through. You'll see down below. Also too, your one thing that's pointed out here is your enterprise fund. The money you bring over enterprise fund has diminished in the past couple years. And you just got to be careful moving forward on that. Um
032it's great while it lasted, but you got to be careful. Can you explain what that is for? >> Well, sure. Okay. I have I have that I have a slide for that, but but that that's from your you have what's called a proprietary fund, enterprise fund. It's it's a fund that's a it's not general fund. It's it's a fund that's set up >> for services that could otherwise be provided in a commercial entity. >> Okay? Because you can't equate >> think take a business like approach to running, but you can't equate the accounting to a business. So that that's one of the next things I have there. So you had excess monies in um ECE and falcon care over the years. Uh and so they built up uh it built up a lot of money
033that you were able to say, "Okay, what are we going to do with it?" Now, unfortunately, there's three things you can do with it. A lower rates. B buy more stuff for the kids or C bring it in for tax relief. You can't do that with food service funding because that's really the government's mind. Okay? So the other two are yours here. You can bring them over. We start the year with 9.6 six million of fund balance and we ended the year with 13.1 of fund balance. If you get to the very last page of 12, you get this bill paid there. Now, the problem with it is is that it's not all free and clear. Okay? So, if someone sees that, hey, we got this money. It's not all free and clear. Okay? 115,000
034is unemployment. 136,000 is for incumbrances. Okay? Excess surplus of 2.9 million. that's going to be mandated to be in well it is it's already gone once you adopt your 2526 budget with the 2.9 the 2.9 million it's theoretically gone because it it's it's it's built in to the spending plan and it's gone and then okay you have your capital reserve of 23 million you have your your >> 2300 something that >> 23,000 right that's a million >> we was higher right >> yeah um your unassigned which is your 2% um maximum that you're allowed to keep. Some people look it as a statutory minimum. I look at it as a statutory maximum. Okay. And then you have your excess surplus from operations this year of 6.7 million that is mandated for as a revenue source
035meaning you're now developing 2728 budget. >> Okay. Now went up from 2.9 to 6.7. That's wonderful. However, the worry is the 2728 budget and I know you're you're focused on 20627 and you have to be but in my mind I always think two years out and you be business people should be too. How you going to get back to 6.7? We don't know. Okay. But you know what the problem is is that because of the economic conditions. Okay. Um it's great to think two years in advance but you don't know where health benefits are going to go. >> Correct. Right. we've had that discussion. So, you just got to be known. You just got to know um you know where we how we going to get that in 2728. Now, one thing I recommended in
036another district was um instead of using the whole thing for to offset operating expenses, okay? Because the 6.7 [clears throat] in this district is potentially non-recurring. Maybe you use 3.0 02.9 to offset operating expenses and the differential goes towards capital which is not recurring. Just a thought. Okay. But then again flavor of the board they said look we want it all up you know I I don't make I'm just pointing that out that there's a way to to minimize the hurt in 2728. So you ended the year at 13 million. >> Any questions point >> Peter I'm almost at missile toe point. Okay. Right. >> So the next page and now you know what movie that's from correct? >> I do not. >> Four Christmases. >> But uh >> let's see. Both of them the
037husband and this other woman who I don't remember her name. They each had parents who divorced. So they had to spend them Christmas at four different places when they normally >> was recep the key word is mistletoe when they want to get out. >> Okay. So B5 is your enterprise fund. Now Falcon Care, okay? And early child, that's your money. Okay. Um, you know, the expenses are all here. It's proper to do this. Um, but you ended up the year with not as much money as you started. And you did ex you did have excess operational money to bring over to the general fund for tax relief, but I don't know that that's going to be obvious for 2728. Now, your food service operation, which is massive, okay, 3.1 million is the expenditures that that's
038that's not a that's not a chunk change operation, okay? We do look at your food service company's records, okay? make sure that the invoices are charged properly to Monroe of Middle Sex County, not Monroe of Gloucester County. Okay? And I don't I don't think they do Monroe down there, but just in case because in New Jersey, there's a lot of similar names like there's about 40,000 name north, 20,000 name south. So, and we do some of them. We just want to make sure that we're not being hit by them free. We got four freeholds. I mean, you know, so >> we want to make sure we get charged properly and we we do look at their payroll. Okay. Uh we tie that in to make sure that they're not >> we we check their time
039sheets. Okay. Now, if they want to pay their people 80 bucks an hour, that's their business. But if they're reporting time hours to us, that that does become our business. So, we want to make sure that the time reports are the same. Okay. Uh and then we look at some of the food vouchers. Um, but they have keep on file here with you upon their contract. What's called a it's a report on internal control of service organizations. They're a service organization. They're actually handling your assets. So, they have to have an internal control letter that says, "Yeah, everything." And it's about that thick, okay? And no one has the time to read it either. So, but it's on file. It's required by the state. It's required by the feds that they have it. Okay? Um,
040so yeah. So, we went through everything and your your um your revenues are good because I understand they eat a lot of pizza at the high school. So, um and actually you're fortunate in this town that your your state uh and federal reimbursements aren't so heavy. Okay? Because really your 977,000 in total, the bulk of which is commodities that are donated. Okay? So, you ended up the year with a million 140. Now, previous years that fund may have gone over what's called the 30% threshold. Your net cash resources, meaning cash receivables minus your payables, gives you a number that can't be more than 30% of your operating expenses. Okay? And we well, we have that calculation in here as well. So, you were under that. if you were over it, we'd have to put a
041sentence in and say that, oh yeah, they promised to uh spend buy another refrigerator or something like that to reduce the number a little bit. But um we we've had every now and then to do that in some districts, but a lot of districts had a lot of extra money during co not anymore. I mean, everything I've just finished is is below the threshold. So maybe it was a good thing, but it was a bad thing, but it was difficult to operate obviously. So you have 1 million 140 which is below the threshold. Okay, so that's pretty much the accounting piece of it. Now, the next document, you'll get another document distributed from Laura. That's the AMR, the auditors and management report. Okay, that's my representation to the board about the operation of the district.
042Okay, everything I've talked about that we tested is is is alluded to in here. Okay, and we've got all all good excellent results from all the testing that we did. Okay. Um what we recommend mainly though is when you has somebody recently retire that maintaining um sometimes in certain key positions. Okay, retirement or departure of a person most especially in payroll kind of raises a little bit of our our audit uh antenna. Okay. But we didn't have that problem with the replacement for Matt because we knew her. Okay. And she was there for the bulk of last year. the prior year. So, but we knew because she came up through the ranks and was part of helping keep that system in the basement there moving. So, we it but every now and then you got
043to make sure that somebody comes in new that you know that they're properly trained. What you don't want is a blip. You know, oh, he didn't know or oops, you know, we don't want that. You don't want that either. So, u and I know there's a new person there, but I don't think that's going to be the case because I think she was from within the district. Sometimes they a lot of districts like like as a cow he brings everybody from within uh because even if they didn't work in the business office they're familiar with things you know like they know first of all they know the the level of standards that are set okay and that they know a few people here and there and they do a lot better. He brings them from
044within >> except for one person >> himself. >> What's that? >> Himself. >> No no no one the girl who worked with me since she was in high school. >> Really? >> Yeah. And I told her, "Why don't you take some business courses?" "No, I don't want to do that." Where'd she end up? The business office in North Brunsw" and she looked at me one day and said, "You know, I should have listened to you. I take one business course. That's all." So, I was using the payroll department. >> Nice. >> And she what she did for us was she did all the ASSA work >> and she was like, "Right on, you know." So, we have a letter to the to the board that indicates our our procedures. Okay. Um, we have explanation and
045everything that I talked about is containment here, but it's a little less cumbersome in terms of the presentation. It's it's actually boilerplated wording. The Department of Ed gets mad if you deviate from their wording. Okay? They get mad if you have something in there that's a hint of negativism. They require you to write a recommendation. Okay. And in the when I started this business, if we would issue a report when I started this business, the whole report was in one document. It was all one document. Our audit and the AMR work. If you did if you wrote a comment like, you know, I think you should uh you should tighten up on your bank wrecks. They would write a letter and say, "If you don't reissue your report with a recommendation, we're going to report
046you to the state board of accountancy and revoke your license. You're kidding." >> Right? Sometimes the regulations are absurd. I had a fire district that I do that they reduced a line item called welfare 200 bucks. 200 to zero. They wanted an explanation. >> Okay. There's there not not the one in town here. Okay. So, um we have all the information here. We we were happy with all the results. The school board again we emphasize to then they have the personnel who have the ability to monitor the student activity funds because we don't want to come back and say, "Oh, yeah." Because a couple years ago we had a problem that you may or may not know about, but I don't think anyone's on the board. Uh there was two problems there and they were
047it wasn't criminal, but it was stupid. Okay. So >> I was in the audience. >> They may have to done with sneakers. >> So we also we did look at let's see IDA. I spoke to your person in charge of that. I spoke to your person in charge of title one. >> Okay. That there's required items. We didn't have to because of the dollar threshold, but I did anyway just to let them know someone else is looking. Okay. there are certain things that you have to have when the IO1 auditor shows up. >> Okay, so just a preliminary thing because I don't know a little birdie told me that there's a possibility that they're going to start sending these monitoring teams back out in 2930. Okay. Now, some people will be retired by then, but
048you still need to make sure that whomever is here is is set up do that more set up for transition mostly in the area of ASSA supposed to have a written procedure, which you do as to how the count occurs and how it flows through from the register to the final ASSA report that's submitted. Now, we checked that 100%. It was fine, but you got to make sure you know it has to get reviewed as well as your extraordinary aid application. You know, my wife works in the district. She's in charge of all that. No one reviews her work. I said, are you kidding me? No one looks at it. Nope. I said, she says, I don't know why. I just I asked, you know, you should be reviewing this. Anyway, even the auditor doesn't
049look at it. And she asked him, are you going to look at this? No. Why? Who are you? And don't worry about who I am, what I know, okay? Just you're not going to look at it. Okay. So, we had no bid violations. Okay. And you do take good advantage of the co-ops because life is easy. Some cases it might be a few bucks more. But the differential could be that you don't have to have someone sit down and write specs. Okay? Like if it's engineering oriented like a Jerry has to write it or then you have to have your attorney look, you don't need to do that. So certain things, yeah, you do. Where you could get burned is computers because a lot of people don't really know, including myself, what what you're buying.
050All these different manufacturers have all different things that you don't know what you're buying. So, you give it your best shot. We have comments in here about the operation of the boot service plant. That's what we talked about. The ASSA, the RTRS worked out very nicely as I indicated. So, in the end, we have Oh, there's also your your meal counts which were required to disclose. It's all it's all in here. What we do with that is we actually trace it from the school level. They have this little sheet, the school level, weekly, the monthly, and then that flows into this monthly report that you file so you get reimbursed. Okay. So, we had no exceptions with that. >> It seems lopsided. >> Yes, it is. >> Hello. >> It's lopsided. >> Okay. >> That's
051because I had no errors in, you know, there's a there's a threshold that they accept, too. We we don't have that. I mean they'll anything less than 2% on your end your attendance register. By the way in this day and age if if you're at 2% then somebody in school has a problem that they can't count kids or or somebody wrong. It shouldn't happen >> right. So in the end we first of all want to thank the employees who helped us during the audit. I think they they made it to the point where you're able to give it a great opinion. Okay. And also to minimize any uh comments and recommendations that occur. Okay. Hopefully I that will continue. We also want to thank the board for their support. So any questions? Did I answer
052everything? >> Does anyone have question? >> Perfect. >> You good? >> Yeah, it worked out nicely. I appreciate the opportunity to talk. >> Thank you. >> I could talk in four hours about this thing. >> I believe. Yes, >> I could. Good. >> Can I have know I've been doing this a long time. >> I've had personal experience with your >> I you've been hanging around with a >> one place I went to they okay you know 30 seconds or >> 30 seconds >> what happened one time was they didn't want me to talk. >> Oh okay >> because there was a lot of things going on. >> Okay. >> So the board president goes okay you can leave now. We're not really required. You're you're required only to acknowledge the fact that you've read
053the audit and accept it >> and if you have to have a plan of action, you're we don't have to come in. >> Okay. But we do. >> Okay. >> So, >> thank you for that. >> No problem. >> We appreciate it. >> Any questions? You're sure. Okay. >> Thank you, J. Thanks. >> Nice work. >> Good work by the the employee. >> Can you do your presentation at next week's meeting or also right? I'll be here, but it won't be as >> the the finance meeting and I'll indicate that we had an exit conference >> before with management and then we had a lengthy >> maybe deliriously boring. I won't say that uh meeting with the finance and operations committee and then I'll come in and I'll just highlight a couple but it won't
054be >> as long. That's the purpose of this. Okay. Okay. And then if you have to open up the questions I'm more than happy >> uh to uh answer anything that they can throw at us. Sounds good. And and the public can watch this meeting if they have. >> Okay. >> If they want a more detailed >> Yeah. And if anybody has any questions on the board, they can route them through Laura or Dr. Layman. Yeah. >> And we're happy. I mean, I just, you know, if they route it through them, we'll answer whatever we have to, but I think she can handle >> uh pretty much all the questions. I mean, she did get very high scores in the CPA exam, so >> a lot more than I did. So, >> for you, Laura,
055the >> books better be perfect. outside. Laura, we have to hear from an outsider. >> Good. Good. >> Way up. >> I made it by one point. >> And you're still around. [laughter] >> Okay. >> All right. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. I got to go. I got to go back to work now. >> Thank you, Jerry. >> Yes. >> All right. So, >> okay. >> The next item on the agenda, the monthly review of the church. Yeah. So, >> does anybody have any questions about the the attorney fees for this month? >> Nope. >> No. >> Okay. And then the third item is the monthly review of the bills. Any questions? >> No. >> Thank. >> Okay. Byebye. >> Questions from everyone? >> Nope. Okay. Sounds good. And then we also have
056a document budget calendar. >> Yes. >> You want to talk a little bit about that, Laura? >> Yeah. So, um, real quick, um, so as you know, November and December, um, Dr. Layman and I met, um, had budget defense meetings with the district staff. Um, February 24th is the anticipated date for the governor's budget address. And then, you know, two days later, February 26th, we were anticipate the state release. So, we'll get our hopefully get our numbers done for our state to work into the budget. Um, and then >> I just remember last year that was a delay with that number, right? Was that last year? >> No. Okay. There was one year that I remember didn't come out when it was supposed to, but that's February 26th. >> February 26th. Okay. Um and then
057March 16th would be the budget presentation at the uh board of education meeting. >> Um and then March 19th is so 3 days later is the last day to file the tenative budget with the executive county superintendent. Um and that would bring us to April 27th. We'll have a board meeting um for the budget hearing and um hopefully for the adoption of the budget which um the deadline to adopt the budget is May 14th. So our meeting is you know in advance two weeks in advance of that. So we should um we should have enough time for that. So that is basically that is our budget calendar you know the important dates that we need to know. Um and that's that's it. >> Okay. Does anyone have questions on the budget calendar? No >> concerns.
058Okay. All right. So, that concludes our finance meeting for the month of January. Thank you. >> Thank you. Stay safe.