Audit Committee Meeting February 25, 2026

001Good afternoon. Okay. Good afternoon. >> Um I'm Clarice Warner and I'd like to call the Cincinnati Public Schools Audit Committee meeting to order. Um, thank you to our committee members, uh, staff liaison and presenters for being here today. Um, as this is my first meeting as chair, don't say that. Um, I want to begin by thanking uh the committee for your service and commitment to oversight, transparency, and accountability for the district. Um, we have a lot of faces, new faces in the room and so I think it would be appropriate to do a quick uh roundroin introduction. Um, we'll start with John. >> Hello, John Young, audit committee member. I am starting year two of my term. >> J O N. Uh Paul Kitsm Miller, audit committee member. Uh been here since 2022, so four

002years. >> Uh Dan Hold House, audit committee member. Um since 2014, I think. >> Clarice Warner, uh audit committee chair. I've been here since I think 2018. 2018. >> Kevin Hoffman, audit committee vice chair. Uh, been here I think since 2023 or 2024. >> Seth Harmon, audit committee member. I've been here since 2024. >> Hi, Laura D. Ola, audit committee member since last year, beginning my second year. >> Uh, Aton, school board member. >> Uh, 18th year as a school board member and at least twothirds of those have been on audit committee. >> Yep. Jim Crosset, school board member, former audit committee member. >> Kendra M, school board member, uh, first year on the audit committee and third year as a board member. >> Chris Perkart, chief operating officer. >> Cavani Tallinger, benefits manager. >>

003Jeremy, chief information officer. >> Kathy Spelman, director of accountability and testing. >> Tony Fields, customer care center manager. Kevin Ashley, director of financial reporting and transparency. >> Liz Martin, assistant treasurer. >> Rob Wilson, technician. >> Maxwell Lawson, uh, internal audit intern. >> Emma Mueller, internal audit supervisor. >> Lauren Havos, chief audit executive. >> Michael Gustin, treasurer. Sha Murphy, superintendent. Rick, Janette, Addie, Carson, audit committee member. Um, this is my I guess it's still my first year. Well, thank you for that. Thank you. Um, we have a full agenda today. Um, including a significant focus on the student data reporting. Um, so I will jump right into our our agenda. First, we will review a few administrative updates. We have um the proposed 2026 audit committee meeting schedule for your review. Um so board members, please

004take a look at that. If there are any conflicts or concerns, you can address them to Lauren. Second, um this is a reminder that all members are required to complete a 2026 conflict of interest and related party disclosure forms. You will find that uh in your packets today. If you have not yet submitted yours, please do so promptly. Um, and lastly, in your package, you will find your bios. Please review those and edit as needed. Um, electronic versions can be sent to you if if you need those and then kindly return them to Lauren if there are any edits that need to be made. Any questions on that? Okay. All right. Well, we will move into today's um primary audit presentation, the student data reporting audit report from Emma. >> All right. So, um I

005want to start out by saying why does student data matter? Well, student data here at CPS is very important. Um, we wanted to thank the superintendent for initially asking us to look at student data along with the fact that there was a new process regarding centralized enrollment here this year. So originally enrollment you had paper forms at the school. It moved to a new district centralized enrollment process. Um, so that was one of the changes that kind of triggered an audit in this area. So to give a little background at CPS, student data starts in focus, which is our student information system, but it doesn't stay there. That information then flows into EMIS, which is the education management information system for Ohio. And that is done by Kathy Spelman, the director of accountability and testing,

006and Jeremy Galahghue, the chief information officer. Um so those are two people that we worked with through this audit that are also here today. Um this matters because the data impacts three big areas that mostly everybody is concerned about. How the district is funded, how the district is evaluated through the state report card and how we meet the federal requirements for different title money, title one, title three and IDEA. Um so when data is not entered in consistently on the front end it can then create a ripple effect which we see in other process areas here. It can lead to more corrections on the back end more pressure during these reporting windows that we have and then more re risk around the completeness and accuracy of the data and what is publicly reported for funding.

007Um so this is really the reason we did this review. We wanted to take a step back understand from beginning to end this this process. It's a huge process. Um I think us talking to the team initially, we thought we had all these ideas and we really had to time take it back to step zero and understand every kind of component of student data as a whole. So our audit objective was very similar to the other audit objectives we had this year was a test of design. The goal of our audit was to look at the step the student data process from beginning to end. And uh we reviewed how enrollment and attendance information was entered, how that data moves from focus to EMIs and then what checks exist um to catch issues before the

008reporting period. So our scope and approach was talking with management. Um we also did walkthroughs, documentation reviews, so collecting any process procedures. um basically any documentation that Jeremy, Kathy, and Tony Fields had for us. Uh and then we also did a lot of research on state and federal requirements because there are a lot and they're they're changing. So that was also interesting to add into the mix. Um student data here at CPS is not owned by one team. It is technically owned by one team, but there are so many different people who touch it and have an opportunity to work with it. So um it co we had to take a lot of coordinated effort to work across the schools multiple central office functions. We met with the key process owners um for the different

009points enrollment record finalization attendance entry and documentation. Uh this was also one of our audits that included a large number of process owners. I think since I've been here to date it's one of our larger audits where we've uh really touched every point of this process. So to get into our work, we grouped this area into five components. One being centralized enrollment. So that's where student records start. How eligibility and placement and documentation are established. The second is attendance. That becomes the daily evidence that the student is participating and one of the most sensitive data entry areas for reporting outcomes. Third is error management. So that's how data issues are identified, corrected, and then tracked. The fourth is reconciliation which is the validation work between focus and emis. Um and then fifth is the reporting

010and outcomes. So to start with centralized enrollment, this is one of the most important areas I think we looked at this year because it was a new process. So historically this was done by paper at the school level. Now it's digital and centralized. Um, and families can come into the customer care center, which is what Tony Fields is the manager of. Um, that is a major operational change. So, you're telling all of our schools now, this is how our enrollment process is going to be. You're having to communicate that across all of the different types of people and communicating it effectively to make sure everybody understands. Um so whenever a process changes at that scale there's more risk around if it's consistently being carried out how clearly roles are understood and then in this case

011at the district whether families are having the same experience no matter where they start. Um because enrollment is also the front end of the student data life cycle it made sense for us to start there. Um, so this is where student eligibility is established, where placement then begins and when the district captures the core information that drives the rest of the data for the remaining part of the year. If this process is strong, the downstream work is then more stable. If it's not, then those issues carry forward into multiple areas around the district. um those issues could be attendance, student movement and then eventually impacting our funding at the very end of the the process. So this review was not just to look at en enrollment as a standalone process. It was really to understand

012how the new centralized enrollment model is functioning where it's in where it needs improvement if any and then if the structure still needs strengthened um as the district is implementing it in the years to come to move forward to attendance. It's one of the most important day-to-day data entry points in the district because it affects all of our daily operations. It connects directly to compliance reporting and our accountability measures. So once a student is enrolled, attendance is then the main way that the district shows the student is actually participating and that if there are absences, the related codes are being handled appropriately. That's when the truency and chronic absenteeism become important. So truency can um trigger required follow-up. that's statemandated and then inter intervention steps to follow. And then chronic absenteeism is a major outcome

013um that the district can be evaluated on on their report card. So if attendance is not recorded consistently and correct correctly, the risk is not just a data inconsistency issue. It then also becomes a compliance issue. Um CPS tracks attendance in hours. So even small issues you wouldn't think you know are going to impact a lot down the um down the line are going to add up over time. Moving to the um error management side of things. This phase is important because student data is usually not just one bad entry or one misupdated field. They tend to show a disconnect between all of the different moving parts of the process. So for example, a student might be enrolled but not scheduled correctly. Scheduling, they might be scheduled but they might not actually be attending or

014they could be withdrawn later than they should have um after the long period of non-attendance. So the goal here is to catch those issues early enough um while there's still time to fix them before uh the director of accountability and testing, her team goes in and then tries to reconcile all those potential inconsistencies. Um, these issues can show up at the school level through things like roster mismatches, no-shows, um, and then absent patterns that tend to pop up over time. They can also show up through district review routines and then those validation checks that they do. The risk is that the con corrections are not handled consistently and they're not tracked through a resolution. then those same problems keep keep resurfacing and pile onto their team which then creates kind of like a backlog of

015data errors and data fixes. Uh moving to the reconciliation process. So this is the district's final quality check before student data then becomes official and reported to the state. At this stage, CPS is really making sure that the record is consistent across enrollment, consistent across attendance, withdrawals, withdrawals, and any other corrections that were made earlier within that year. Um, so basically, they're making sure that the file we're sending to focus matches the EMIS file that the state has. Because this process runs on the state reporting calendar, timing matters a lot. It's not anything we dictate. The state dictates it. So, the district has a routine process with internal deadlines. So those issues are normally handled before we're having to send anything out. And then finally, we go to the report card and funding stage. And

016this is the most important part because this impacts how much funding we get from the state, how much federal federal funding we get, and overall as a district um the quality that we're providing to the kids. So once the district has validated the data and then moves forward with their reporting, the record is no longer just internal. It drives our outcomes that the districts the district may need to publicly report on and then it also impacts financial support. So from a community view that in includes things like report card measures. Um that's where the data quality really matters especially around different attendance and student groups. It impacts a lot of different um grant opportunities as well. So how does that all tie back to our key findings? So I want to say what we observed

017overall was really good solid process documentation with all the teams. We walked through the process. We saw actually documenting documented procedures which I think you know in some cases we go into an audit and there's just not anything documented at that point. So the district should be very very proud of that. Um especially given that centralized enrollment is brand new this year and how complex of an area that student data is across the board. So really a focus of our recommendation is just to make student data documentation more consistent um and easier to understand across each level that is going to be working with it. So if you're a teacher, you need to be under you need to be able to understand maybe why it's so important to enter in that data correctly the first

018time. Um for centralized enrollment, we recommended to continue formal form formalizing uh one clear process across the schools. the welcome centers and other other specialized pathways. So CPS also has um procedures they follow for our unhoused student population. So making sure everybody understands what those kids need um how you communicate to them. For the EIS reconciliation and validation, we saw that the accountability and testing team already had very strong documentation in place. So now the opportunity there is just to make the process easier to understand and follow end to end. Um and then for our centralized enrollment again um here at the district we had parents and families come in and we were all kind of in the um school lunchroom. So, kind of having a place where if they're bringing in their documents like

019a birth certificate, social security card, all of those PII documents, we kind of have a place to put them where they're not going to forget it on a table and it be an issue later on. Um, I think this was one of the best audits that we did and it opens up kind of next steps for what we could audit next and do actual tests of effectiveness. there are so many areas within student data that have possibilities of audits. So now it's just narrowing down what audit committee thinks is high risk. Um what Kathy thinks might be something we need to look at next year and kind of pinpoint next steps there. But all in all, I think the audit went very well and they were very great to work with and very thankful I

020had them to answer all of my questions. So, I think if there's anything from your guys's team that I might have missed you want to touch on. >> I don't think so, you know, from uh information within the report kind of stuff, but I would just like to add kind of on behalf of the team that, you know, I think this, and correct me if I'm wrong, is probably our first real audit for into student data. And as Emma said at the beginning, it can be very daunting. um when you start trying to get into those processes and even mapping at the surface level, I mean it is a lot overwhelming. So all the kudos in the world for Emma and Lauren both that they didn't go running as soon as we started going, "Oh,

021here's your first thousand pages of documentation." So it's a big kudos to them. It was great working with them. Um, you know, and as they said with the first year of centralized enrollment, we definitely identified that this was a great opportunity not to wait until after, you know, our first year and start learning lessons, but trying to learn lessons immediately, identify gaps that we have and start taking the lessons learned to continue our improvement throughout all the process no matter where we have strengths or weaknesses, but identifying those upfront and being able to chase them immediately meant a lot to us and meant a lot to the team. So, we appreciate the work. Well, thank you guys. Any questions from audit committee or superintendent? >> Not a question, but a comment if I may. Um,

022thank you. Oh my goodness. Thank you. Uh, it's it can be a little intimidating to start something new uh in a district that's almost 200 years old. But I do want to say to the audit committee, we were in a conversation about enrollment with the school board just Monday night. They let they gave us great information. One of the key takeaways that's very aligned with Emma's report is just making things streamlined so they're clear uh and easy for everyone to understand. I do want audit committee board members, everyone to know we've already started working on getting a team meeting together to begin um making a process that's even easier for families to understand and to navigate. Thank you guys so much. Are there any other questions or comments? I think with something as critical as

023it's very clear that this is you know considering that next step in the effectiveness even if it's minimal effectiveness things like your in your output from uh focus to your input to I think it was Amos uh to your input to the next system making sure that hey if we say we have you know 50,000 people and I know that's not the number But, you know, we're putting 50,000 into the next system. So, you you're not exactly sure that the data is exactly accurate, but it gives that first level of comfortness that your population you're not missing anyone. And I I from what I heard, I think missing people would be a really bad start. Uh so that that would be as you grow like I I I that agile mindset of building on each

024time and just taking small bites not big huge chunks. That's all. If I could add to that, I agree with everything Kevin said just from a holistic um completeness standpoint, but also if there are I'm interested as you think about test of effectiveness, if there are specific attributes that seem um more critical or maybe higher risk rating and we don't have to have that answer now, but like where would you even start? Um are there specific areas? And then if I can add two questions at once. Um, your second bullet point on the right, special ed, English learners, economically disadvantaged, those subgroups. I'm I'm curious what the call out is. I'm sorry if I missed that earlier. >> Yeah. So, some of those subgroups would impact uh grant opportunities. So, with um English language learners,

025technically those are some of the students that we have at our welcome centers when they come and go through enrollment guidance. So, in that case, making sure that we're able to consistently say what those students need to have to be enrolled and then tracking those students appropriately when they are enrolled. Um, with the economically disadvantaged that ties into Title One money, which is a grant from the federal government. Um, and excuse me if I'm not saying everything 100% correctly. Um, so those are different student groups that we need to make sure when we are plugging them into our student data, uh, we have the right numbers because we are able to get funds for those students who which then impacts their education. Can >> you jump in and help? >> Yeah, thank you. >> Yes.

026Um, um, everything Emma said, yes, but also the um, state fair funding formula. So the funding format for for the district has specific carveouts for all those populations. Um and so we get on top of our base cost, we get what's called categorical funds um for all those groups of students. So so it's really critical they're identified for funding and then obviously to provide them services as well. So then maybe just one thought on that. If if we're talking about like that next step of moving towards design of effective or testing of effectiveness, it seems like those might be some options, right? Like areas that are a little more bite-size or incremental versus the entire universe of student data, which is intimidating to design a test around. So just >> Yes, absolutely. And uh when

027we met with the audit committee chairs, we started talking through that. I think uh old Lauren when I first started here would say well I'm just gonna audit AP real quick and then I realized real quick was never just that and I think this shows uh you know some maturity in our department to say let's get the lay of the land and ultimately piecing this out into its own risk assessment to say what are the options what's the audit universe to your point John and then how do we start to prioritize and select focus projects that provide the most value um I think we also talked a bit about with our audit committee chairs this being an interesting model as we enter new areas. So just to to choose HR, we've not really done beyond

028benefits uh much work in HR. So when the time comes down the road, this could be an interesting take to say how does an employee go from recruitment to hiring to onboarding to management ultimately to departing the district. You could take that same thought process and then you know do your risk assessment and choose sub audits from that. So I think it's an interesting approach that um Emma was able to to carve out as we did this for the first time. >> Um I'm kind of curious. I guess you've done this review and audit after we've been centralized. So you don't really have a comparison to decentralized to centralized, but I'm curious if your uh review or audit enabled any insights into improving the centralized component of how we enroll. Is that a fair question?

029>> So, I think um you know Tony gave us really good clarity on like that process and it sounds like the superintendent is kind of already taking those steps to just clear communication across the board. So, when parents come in with questions, what's centralized enrollment? They all have, you know, the same answer given to them. Um, I think we find sometimes when you're moving to so many different process pieces and process owners, the answer can be different depending on who you're asking. So, just making sure there's clarity around who is supposed to do what and where you go for what types of questions you have. And then the other one would just be having an area um where you know parents and guardians can kind of sit and not be so um in the view

030of everybody in central office was just another one that we had a recommendation on. But other than that I mean as processes go on you kind of can see potentially more inconsistencies but very very happy with the first round of this. Yeah. And I wonder Oh, I was just going to say I wonder if the management teams might be able and our superintendent may be able to say anecdotally comparative to years past how this com centralized kind of compares. And forgive me, Mr. Cross, I think you maybe were going to add something. >> Okay. Yeah, I think it's it's a little a little beyond the scope of just the audit, but I think some interesting early indicators that we've tracked and kind of looked at in terms of that switch over um from a data

031point, you know, year-over-year, we roll up a lot of students from one grade to the next. So, we don't count those as unique enrollments, but prior when we were doing enrollments across the schools versus now centralized, we were around 7,000 unique enrollment interactions at the school level in previous year. This year with the centralized enrollment, we've improved that to about 7,200. So we have seen an increase in that you know overall by itself not a strong indicator but it gives us some indication that we're not dropping more than we're gaining in terms of that change. The second part of it um comes from the number of errors. We also monitor what we consider errors in enrollment uh from a student. You know it could be as simple as the date of birth is was transposed

032when the record was created. So it looks like you know the student is at a different grade than what they should be and we have to correct those errors. So we monitor the number of errors that are being generated from those enrollment interactions and year-over-year right now we're fairly consistent with what we've seen in the past. So we know from the the change we've not increased the number of errors we were experiencing through the collection and we've see a slight very slight so far uh improvement in those numbers. So like I said early indicators is what we have right now but I think they're strong ear or they're good early indicators. >> I had another question. Hold on. >> Does uh focus uh have a user group with best practices that we can um leverage

033for for for improvement for us. Is that such a thing? It it it does um I think not necessarily user group in the traditional sense you may mean but they do have collectives in terms of the getting together various users and uh customers that they have on a regular basis and we do participate in those since we've adopted the platform >> that discuss specifically best practice >> helpful. >> Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. If if I could just ask kind of a quick question or focus the my concern is in this process and I'm glad you all did this. It took us a couple of years to finally agree to have centralized uh uh enrollment and there have been some issues that were raised recently at the board meeting. But I wonder in that process you

034looked at it internally. Uh I don't know what is the role or how uh the audit plays into when it's interfacing with the public. Um, and it's not just like one family and and a and a child or a student, but uh, for example, customer service calls, especially with a new program, how well is the customer service uh, group able to answer the questions or with a new process? And I just think it's kind of some just kind of uh, putting a little bit of extra light on wherever that interfacing is happening. And indeed the enrollment piece is very much a part of recruitment >> in expanding enrollment that too is part of the the interfacing with the public and I know both of those things are concerns to us uh as as people share

035their kids with us. So I don't know how that impacts but that's an area that I would like to know a little bit more about. >> Yeah. So, we had those conversations with uh Tony Fields and we know that they Jeremy and Tony are coming up kind of with a list of when a parent asks about this, how do we answer that across the board, no matter who they're asking. Um, and I don't know if Jeremy wants to go more into it, but I think your your concern is is being um handled. >> Yeah. And I I would just add from the um Emma has done such a great job introducing this test of design versus test of effectiveness approach. So that would be a perfect example. You know, we tossed this mini list, but

036this if we were to develop a broader audit universe as a subset of our first portion, which was the centralized enrollment, that could be one of the audits that we would do and we could analyze satisfaction data, if there's a ticketing system, you know, whatever those data points are to say what is, you know, what is the actual result there. So, I think our focus this time was is there a well-designed process? Can we read, can we follow, can we improve that? further to your point, can we actually gauge then the reality of it? So definitely an option there and uh we welcome and we'll start to continue to build out this universe and maybe continue the conversations with this committee as we hone in on a vast number of choices quite frankly. So thank

037you. >> Yeah. Um I want to um add to um board member Bolton's question and mine was very much similar in terms of thinking about the bandwidth and the capacity, right? that was one of the major challenges that we recognize as we talk about interfacing with our families, interfacing with the public. And so just curious to know um kind of what are some of those areas of feedback so that we can make improvements to streamline that process more um especially as we're considering our budget um this upcoming budget which we know will also have an impact on that. So, um just curious to know about the bandwidth and the capacity um that we have to make sure that this is a more efficient process. >> I may defer to our management team if that is

038something they'd feel comfortable speaking on. Super excited. >> I I'll I'll start. I know that uh we did grow the customer care center team. I think we started with nine and then this year because of the support of the board with the centralized enrollment I believe we've grown to 12. And um we are blessed because we already had uh Spanish speaking staff in the customer care center, but we have as a result of this been able to add a little bit more. Um, anecdotally, not necessarily based on our direct families, but I will tell you that uh I know that some of my uh urban counterpoint counterparts have had some struggles with transportation and um we have multiple people here who are connected to improvement of our transportation and the relationship that we have with

039our uh non-pubs in order to get uh quality transportation to them as well. And I think uh a lot of this is due to having someone dedicated in the customer care center to be able to connect with our nonpubs whereas some of the other large urbans are really struggling in that area. So just one type of customer service uh board member map that I wanted to share that I think is a strength of the team that we have now. So um hopefully our enrollment will um uptick and grow. I will tell you an area uh that we watch all the time and that is we also often have foster care uh students come through that and sometimes their enrollment is super challenging because they may not have all of their records and sometimes our students

040with disabilities may not have all of their records but we work closely as to make sure we put the kids in school sooner as opposed to later and I'm Jeremy may have something to Sorry. Sorry. No, the only thing I would really would add just in terms of from a very practical sense of gathering that some of the feedback and stuff that you were referring to um we have talked about we've had a the uh focus family survey in the past and so we have talked about adding it specifically around the parent not just the interaction with focus as a whole but around enrollment and expanding that survey to include more directional questions in that area so we can get some more direct feedback. as well as uh a little bit earlier in the year.

041Unfortunately, it wasn't at the beginning of the year, but a few I'm going to say 6 weeks to 8 weeks ago, we did enable the um help desk kind of ticketing service where now when a family would call in, if we have a ticket that's generated through customer care or through any of the other units that we have the follow-up survey that goes out to them so that we can have an immediate feedback from them if they submit it to provide any direct feedback. That's some extra data points in a practical sense we'll have kind of going forward here soon. >> I I can appreciate that um this was a test of um design versus effectiveness and half the battle usually is making sure that you have uh documented procedures and so kudos for having

042those well doumented procedures. Um and and I think in the the report it was mentioned that at the handoff spots or where the errors could potentially uh occur. I was wondering um were there any uh roles and responsibilities that were still unclear at those at those various points? And if so um and you may not have an answer for that today and that may be something that you look at um later on, but um how will management ensure that there are consistent accountabilities um across those areas district-wide? So I we didn't look specifically at the roles and responsibilities when it to data handoff points, but I think that would be something that we integrate into our test of effectiveness depending on kind of what subset of data we're looking at. Um it really would start

043at who is entering that information and how they're entering that information and then when it gets sent off to that person, is it being reviewed? Uh but I I think that would kind of be the next step. Um, so that's coming guys. >> Yeah, >> you know my coach's voice, you can hear me. Um, >> the public has to work on though. >> That's true. Um, one of the u misconceptions is when we became centralized enrollment for the customer care center, uh, we didn't just start doing enrollments this year. um we actually did 60 to 65% of the enrollments for the district to start with before we even took over centralized enrollment. So it's not a new process for us in that regards. What has occurred over time and I know management can speak to

044this in any organization when you have 65 different units. Not everybody is always on the same page. And so over time it becomes school A does it this way, school B does it this way and everybody has their own own process and procedures. And what happens, that's where data was getting lost and things were not going smoothly. With the centralized enrollment, one of the first things we wanted to do with it was make it universal. And we're getting to that point now. You know, we're eight months into this. We're starting to get communications. We're going to have active meetings with the registars at each school. Each month we're meeting with school social workers and counselors weekly so we can spread the word. This is how the processes go. Here's who's responsible for like like Miss

045Miller said, A, B, C, and D. here's who's responsible for those. So, we're making great progress with that. We still got a ways to go. Um, but with management's help, I know Miss Superintendent Murphy had said it earlier, we're in the process of getting meetings set up to be able to streamline the process even more for parents and and make it less complicated. And not just for parents, but also for us. It would make the process easier. So, that's where we are with everything right now. Our welcome centers, um, the seven work welcome centers we have, they're also all able to do enrollments at the welcome centers, not just coming into us. So, um, a lot especially our MLL families, they are able to go to the enrollment centers at the welcome centers and they

046can get enrolled at at those locations as well. >> And then Tony, will you briefly as it relates to roles and responsibilities just talk about easy core? >> Yeah. Yeah. Um we have a weekly uh now it's bi-weekly because this schedule's for everybody but uh bi-weekly from 11 to 12 on Wednesdays we have an easy core meeting and uh if the name was before I came on so but um the the meeting itself is we have directors we have managers we have uh people throughout the district and different departments especially in this building and we all get come together and talk about what's going on in the district what's going on our our departments like Kathy's in there with me as Well, we find out what's going on with EMIS. What's EMAs doing right now?

047What are they looking to do? Is there anything that we should be aware of? We do that with most of the departments and that's been a a big success for us over the last couple years. So, it keeps everybody in tune. That's going to be another good avenue. As superintendent said, that's another good avenue for us to make sure that everybody knows what we're doing as far as centralized enrollment. >> Thank you for that. Any other questions? >> No. Okay. >> Well, thank you all. I am going to hand it over to Lauren to go more into the subprocess of this audit for the digital academy that we did. >> Yes. So, this will be rather brief, but this is an area um just a great example. We wanted to try this subprocess audit. So,

048this is um a methodology and approach if you will that we could use for any of those other topics we already discussed. But the one that was completed this time was around uh John J. Gilligan Digital Academy. This may ring a bell as uh the background on this. I performed back in 20 fiscal 19 an audit of our online schools. So that included both GDA as well as the virtual high school really focusing on the attendance reporting and the enrollment reporting and how it correlates with our funding. Um what I found during that past audit is that we were not fully maximizing the FTEES which are full-time equivalents uh that we could possibly report to the state and therefore receive funding on a lot of that shortfall on the documentation predominantly related to offline learning

049activities. So students in our online environments utilize egeneuity and other uh platforms do their work in this online system then they step away and they may do reading writing etc offline and that's the portion that becomes much more challenging to track and so how do we consistently track and document those learning opportunities in order to receive the maximum funding for which we qualify. Um, so that was the 2019 audit and then we fast forward more recently to November of 2024. Internal audit partnered with the office of general counsel as well as assistant superintendent to perform audit and a redesign if you will much lowercase audit of and redesign of GDA. So that was submitted by the superintendent to the board for approval back in December of 2024, thus triggering the redesign of GDA for the

0502526, the current school year. So with all of that being said and school data being um on our our radar this year, I thought it was a great opportunity to revisit this uh in partnership with Miss Spelman and say where do we stand now in this new environment? So the good news is um we see that we have been taking the most conservative approach. We are still not requesting the maximum possible but the flip side of that is we are in compliance. We we are able to support what we claim. So that's great but we do want to ensure we aren't leaving funds on the table. So if we flip over to the next slide there, um you know what we found based on the calculations um from the performance and accountability or accountability and

051testing team. Um I asked Kathy what what do you think the financial impact of this is? What kind of dollars are we are we possibly talking here? So based on fiscal 25 and the reductions that resulted on FTEES, it was approximately $440,000 just utilizing the base cost. So you heard uh Mr. Gustin talk about all those add-ons for language learners or disability. Exclude that. Keep the calculations simple. So the reductions that took place at GDE resulted in $440,000 of reduction in funding. The other caveat, some of that could be proper. sometimes we do have reductions in those students. So, it's hard to say how much of that could be attributed to the documentation uh to a you know a direct number. However, in the environment that we're in in this budget season, every dollar we

052can possibly claim for properly um educating students students were already doing this work. We should ensure we're getting that um and properly supporting that. So, our recommendation is clear. You know where we're headed. Let's develop a process to do just that. Um, so in partnership with the director of accountability and testing and the GDA's new principal, Ryan Gorley, we started conversations to say what what are the requirements from ODW and what is a solution that we can put together that's not over overly labor intensive because you have to think our teachers are educating. How much time do we want and need them coming up with a very complex documentation structure? Um, so that's the balance there and um I may actually turn it over to Miss Belman if she has any updates because I think

053she was in contact with ODW to say what are we looking at? What are the options here? >> So we don't have an update shockingly enough from ODW. Um, I have followed up a couple of times. Um, went through the recent manual for learning opportunities for a digital academy, which is new to the state of Ohio for a public district in the last two years. I believe we just started that. We were able to um gain funding from a different opportunity before the manual came out, but we wanted to make sure based on the 2019 audit that we followed the guidelines um that we had that would closely reflect a public district. it was for a charter school the manual was, but we wanted to make sure that we were um in compliance number one.

054And so following all those state guidelines, currently the new manual takes out an opportunity that we had based on high school um attendance if you had so many credit hours. It's five credit hours. You could that student could be considered a full-time student. So that is no longer the opportunity in the last two years. and meeting with ODW working out that plan. The initial year we wanted to make sure we were following all guidelines and we still do um but we didn't want to miss learning opportunities. So the only there's only two opportunities you can gain um being a digital academy in a public district and that is based on your systems your CIS or your um learning platform which for us is egenuity and those logged hours and that is the one main area

055where you can gain attendance and funding for those students. The second is logged um offline hours which teachers have to attest to for each student and for each um logged hour that the student does complete which is very um labor intensive uh for the teacher and for each student and each project or whatever the learning opportunity is. So working with the principal um and Lauren did last year as she said in November of 24 working this year um and that's what we're just waiting on ODW to basically give the approval for what we are doing. It is another learning opportunity based on egeneuity but also using focus and um the robustness that we have I know that's not a word but the what we're able to use focus as with the attendance based on egeneuity

056and based on our Google meets that we have we are allowed to use those opportunities but we have to have a way to track them so um with our ITM department and with focus and with Ryan Gorley we um think we have a plan that we'll be able to capture that o those learning opportunities in full not leave anything on the table. Um, and OD has been very supportive to work with us. They are like, we do you realize you're leaving this and but we we don't want to put anything up that we can't stand behind and that we don't have the logged hours to back up. So, I mean, we're very conservative and it was very painful and we all felt that. So, this year we have um a different plan and we plan

057on using it. We meet with them in June again to get the approval for that, but we just wanted to have that prior. I just haven't had the response from the department yet. still still waiting. So, >> well, thank you. We'd love to open the floor to any questions or comments regarding uh this subprocess. >> I'm just curious if if we are successful in uh capturing more learning opportunities, which means we're capturing more money. Correct. Um just from a budgetary standpoint, is that money that gets directed to that particular school or is it just fit into the general? >> I I'm just if it comes to the foundation, it fits into the general if it's if it comes through the state foundation payments just part of the general um funding. I the one question I

058would ask I'm not 100% sure of Kathy your numbers 440,000 is that is that net or is that base cost which then means our our local share would apply to it >> it I believe it was our base cost >> so so remember whatever base cost the state gives us we only get around 30% of that >> as actual cash that's one of the one of the things to always remember about the state funding formula is >> is we get a significantly small portion of what of what our base costs are determined to be. >> If I might interject, it was after it was reduced. >> Oh, was it was like 2,900 a student. So, I think that was reduced, which is good. >> Yes. >> Yeah. >> It was based on the 2,900 number

059then. Yeah. Cool. >> Not cool. >> Well, >> but once we get it, it'll be cool. >> Not cool, but at least it's Yeah. At least it's a legitimate 400. >> It just was painful. It was painful to be part of that, but not be able to. And at the time, you know, when we first went to when the state updated that manual, um, GDA had an enrollment of upwards of I'm going to guess, but over a thousand, 1,700 maybe even. I mean, it was and to have the teachers, the idea of them logging offline hours just was an impossible feat in midyear also, like to retroactively go back and do that, it it just was an impossible ask. and um and then to put that forward here we are now and trying to work

060on that. So immediately we put some questions out there and trying to capture that. >> Yeah. And if I might just add I would say the district has been very proactive about this topic because back when we did this in fiscal 19 I remember Kathy reaching out to ODW and saying well you only provide this guidance document for uh community or otherwise known as charter schools. where's the document for traditional schools because that's going to be, you know, our roadmap and what we want to comply to. And the answer was, well, we don't have that yet. So, I think the district has been wanting this guidance because we want to be in compliance and fully uh, you know, fully funded. So, I don't think any of this is a reflection on anything other than the

061circumstance, but I think it's a great opportunity and the teams are well prepared to take it on. >> Okay. Thank you. Um so next we have the audit committee dashboard. Um this dashboard is an important tool for this committee. We love it. It helps us monitor risk trends, recommendation status, and emerging uh pressure points across the district. So um Lauren and Emma, turn over to you. >> Wonderful. So I will keep this rather brief, but as always can dive in if there's any topics you'd like me to expand upon. So, um, just hitting the high points of the dashboard. Uh, external audits since our last meeting. We have four listed if you wouldn't mind scrolling down just a bit, Rob. Three of which are in progress. Uh, one of high was always notable to this

062group is our annual financial statement audit. Currently being performed uh, by the Ohio Auditor of State directly, which is a change from prior years as we recall. uh also being led and coordinated by Kevin Ashley who is probably very much excited uh anxiously awaiting for the release of uh the final report here any day. Um I think things are trending well and I will leave it to uh Treasurer Gustin during his update uh to expand upon that or answer any questions. Uh the -ate audit, I don't know if there's anything that Jeremy would want to share about the -ate audit that was recently completed, but it's great news. We were marked as compliant. Funding continues to flow. I I had not planned to, but I certainly can. So, I mean, the the the real simple

063version essentially is is that with um which if anybody's not familiar, it's a federal program that reimbures us um a lot of our telecommunication costs based on the free and reduced lunch. There's some complicated algorithms along with that, but at the root, that's what it's for and that's how it's calculated. Um, most recently we have been under a one of probably a dozen audits that we have almost every year from -ate. We are one of the most highest audited -ate receivers in Ohio, unfortunately. Um, but fantastically, we virtually clear every single one of them so far. U, this one included. And but this one was a significant one that they were looking at a lot of our bid practices for all of our contracts that went out. um and it was holding up significant funding

064um for a period of months. And when we're working with the -ate um SLD and the FCC that's that's the coordinators of those there's there's what we kind of term the normal turnaround time which is we have three days to respond they have three years and they usually use it. So when we're waiting on funding and they're taking their kind of time on that it can be a little concerning. Um but with this one we did pass with no questions. Um, all of our funding was released for this year thankfully and we're good to go and we'll we'll gear up for next year's request which will have its own set of audits that will absolutely come. >> Thanks Jeremy and thanks for letting me put you on the spot. No worries. My note ask Jeremy.

065>> Thank you. >> Um, so the other two are grants uh traditional audits that happen annually. >> Um, moving just briefly to the uh update of our internal audit plan. You also graciously approved our revised plan that we shared with you in December. And based on that plan, we are 73% along, which is perfect timing. We are on track to report all of our remaining projects to you all at the next meeting in April. Uh two projects to quickly highlight that are going to be the focus over the next two months are IT audit led by no surprise, Emma, our IT uh guru. And then we'll have a further focus on by myself predominantly on our internal audit manual continuing to document and formalize our procedures as we are uh the champion of that among

066other departments. We are working ourselves to do the same. A really big update though that I don't want to move too far beyond is our internal audit staffing and development. So that has been a large focus of mine since we last met and since internal audit uh our past supervisor departed in September. So uh through a very rigorous uh interview and application process we are so wonder so excited to welcome Maxwell Lawson to our team and I wanted to give him just a moment to introduce himself and share a bit about his background and what brings him here. >> Yes. So hi everybody. My name is Axel Lawson. I graduated last December with my degree in accounting. I'm currently pursuing an MBA while studying for the CPA. Um went to a CPS school with the

067Spencer Center, graduated in 2022, part of the first graduating class there. Um wanted to work for CPS cuz was a part of the district. I have a lot of friends in the district since I went to the district and I'm from somewhat familiar on how the at least on the student side or teacher side how things are ran. So, I thought it'd be fun to see on the internal audit side, too. >> Thank you. And then in terms of our internal audit specialist, uh we are bringing a name forth to the board for approval this upcoming Monday and he plans to start his first day on the 23rd of the month. But in respect for him not yet giving notice and uh you know that whole process we'll we'll bring him as a surprise to

068the next meeting. So so we're very excited and appreciate the board's support in filling these critical positions. Um so from that point uh we've done some analysis on our hours. We're over a little here under a little there but I think all in all we're doing pretty well. They're all based on estimates but each year we learn from them. Happy to answer any questions if you do have them on the hours. Um, and if there are not, I'll move over though to Emma to go through our past recommendations um, side of the dashboard. So, everyone's favorite subject, status of past recommendations. Um, we did see movement in AP continuous auditing from 2024. A past recommendation was closed. Thank you, Mike and his team. Um, other than that, we are still reviewing all the recommendations. Um,

069and I think our plan for planning this year is to uh have conversations with management to go through all of the open items uh that are past due, see where they're standing, are there any budgetary concerns there to close that recommendation. Uh are there compensating controls in that area now? Um that potentially kind of closes that risk gap. Um but that's kind of looking ahead. Other than that, I'm going to introduce Chris Birkhart. He is going to talk more about his area, similar to what Mike did the last time that he was here. >> Thank you. Um our our team within the operations have really done a great job looking at um everything from internal audit and the recommendations and really not just trying to get them resolved quickly but also getting them resolved the

070right way so that there's a long-term change in how we operate from a day-to-day basis. Uh anyone who knows me or knows operations, we are all about standard operating procedures. Um, as as Lauren has has alluded to earlier, that is the the crux of our business. Um, as I came to the district uh almost four years ago, uh, in most of our operational areas, there were not standard operating procedures. So, we've really spent a lot of time trying to document those. Uh, we do also realize that there are a number of the uh, internal audit areas that have been on the docket for quite some time. And so as I meet with the internal audit team and we talk through each one of them, almost each one of them is a half hour, 45 minute

071conversation on what the audit um uh identified, what steps we're taking, and then what we're planning for the future. Um as we put those uh answers into the little box that we have, we we al always look back and say, okay, we can't write a book here, but there's always questions that are going to be asked. So through this dialogue um Lauren was gracious enough to say why don't you come to internal uh audit committee and let's have some conversations about you know some of those things that have been uh on the docket for quite some time. I also brought with me Javanni Tringer who is our new benefits manager. So I do know that many of our many of the audit questions are dealing with benefits. We do have a new um HR director

072that is starting on Monday as well. Um and we've re uh we've looked at the structure of human resources and made some changes but we also expect that when the new director comes she is also going to put her um fingerprint on the division as well. So uh we are very very lucky to have some great individuals uh join our team folks who are experts in those areas and we hope that we don't resolve these quickly but we resolve them expeditiously so that we don't have to look at them again. Um happy to answer any questions about them. I know you've seen them multiple times. Um there there's a number of them from transportation to uh purchasing to facilities um and then HR and benefits. Um from a just a a high level view on

073each each one of those from a transportation standpoint when I arrived at the district we had 2700 students who did not have a bus who could not get to school. Today, I'm happy to say that we are at a 93% on time rate across the entire district, including non-charters and uh non-public and charter schools. So, we are showing that we're making great progress in those areas. There's still some areas obviously with internal audit that we um um still need to do some work on, but we have made great strides um even since the short time that Javanni has been here. We've made great strides in the benefits. We had an open enrollment. We have also transferred um all of our data inhouse um from from benefits. So that is all in business. Plus with the

074h help of the treasur's office and Adam Keaptainner, we are now in the process of auditing all of the records. When I say all of the records, I mean all of the records. All of every upload that uh each employee has submitted to us. Looking at each one of those to make sure that we have what we need and making sure it's correct. And I'm sure Javanni can talk more about those processes. Um so within that we've made some great strides. Um in relation to purchasing uh we are looking to automate the purchasing card uh lowering and raising limits. That's something that the the treasur's office is going to spearhead uh again along with Adam Gner. Uh we did a couple of tests and so I'll let them uh talk more about that. And then

075in facilities, I know that we uh I believe we closed out an item in uh from a situation in which uh school staff were not getting a proper accountability of all the things that were being worked on. So we now have a Google sheet with a reporting system that when a work order is put in, the person will get a status update on where those are. We hope to then transition that back to um ARCUS, which is our um our standard operating procedure for putting in work orders, the maintenance folks um doing those work orders and then closing them out and then getting that into a situation where the principal and the person who put in the work order both get emails. We haven't automated that yet, but that's on the the next couple steps

076of getting that closed out even to a further level than was asked. So with that, I know we don't have a lot of time. Happy to answer any questions or Javanni as well. >> Okay. Well, >> you have a question. >> Wow. Um, you know, of of all the uh audit recommendations and even outside of the audit recommendations, uh, what's the thing that keeps you up at night? >> Um, probably the things that keep me up at night are are really right now not things that are on the audit report. It is um as we've talked about in the board meeting even this past Monday, it is dealing with our facilities and um making sure that we are putting our students in the safest, cleanest buildings across all of our uh campuses across the entire

077districts. That's that's probably the hardest. I think everything else that we are talking about here at audit are all procedural um things that we we we can get a handle on. we can solve long term. >> So that >> that's an interesting risk uh assessment for internal audit to consider >> and I can say Mr. Dr. Birkhart is nothing but consistent for the last two to three years when I start our conversation with what keeps you up at night. He says, "Let me show you the spreadsheet." And and that's really and that was even before I think you know that's two to three years ago and I think that is where we we kind of cross between strategic moves to from procedural. So um completely support that you know need that risk to be addressed

078of course. >> So a as a parent who used to have a child take the bus it it I'm very happy to hear that you're 93% on time. There was nothing worse than sitting there waiting for the bus and having no idea whether or not it was coming. So, uh, first of all, I commend you on that. Um, the next the questions I have really focus on, you know, the outstanding issues and, >> um, I I want to know the plan. What what is your plan of attack? cuz the way that I see it, you know, >> many of these you could take in multiple ways on how you're trying to address it. Are are you looking at, you know, they have assessments, you know, risk ratings on on that? Is that factoring in as

079to your your stack rank on where you're trying to attack? Because I mean, many of these are years old as we see. Uh so the age isn't at this point the age isn't just the the number you care about or you should um you know that risk is really in my opinion the the the primary driver you would love to address issues you know you probably don't know I'm a former auditor so uh issues and and identify that's it's its crux to what I've done most of my life um but what is the the strategy on you know you don't when you look at the issues that are on here for those audits. You don't have a ton outstanding when you look at the total identified. So, that's a great option, but >> tying that

080up and buttoning that up is really critical. >> Yeah, thank you for the question and truly that's why we wanted to come today to be able to answer those types of questions because our three or four sentence answer does not go to really the work that we're doing to to close some of these out. I'll use transportation. I just pulled up the the dashboard. One is process documentation. We are doing a fantastic job of documenting every single thing that we're doing. Um, happy to share those spreadsheets, internal audits in those spreadsheets and our documentation. They've actually started using some of that document documentation process as well. So, um, the things that we're doing within operations are are spreading across the district. uh budgeting process is one of those things in transportation that will continue to

081be um I'm not going to say problematic, but challenging. Um so we had all of our buses routed by uh July 31st this year. We had over 2,000 students change their bus or change their address or come to the district. And so with that, we had to change and reroute a lot of our buses. And so as we did that, the process for budgeting, if we gave uh let's say UTS 67 routes, maybe they have 69 now. And so when we do our budgeting process, that is usually done in you know March, April, May, June at the latest. And so there's a disconnect between having real time data and what we've budgeted. And so for the past two years, we've I've put together along with transportation team a cost for every single school and every

082single bus down to the penny. And we use that as a starting point, but then as things change, we know that there's a conflict there. So, I'm not sure that that will ever get to a point um unless we get students and families to tell us before July 31st um where they're going to school and what their address is and and all those things. I am working with Tony Fields and his team about getting a concerted effort to get addresses updated in March, April, May, and June so that we have actual data that we're working on. So when we talk about some of those like the budgeting process, we're doing a great job on it, but there's those X factors that we can't control. We can't control those 2,000. Now, we're going to try to,

083but there's still those things that that we still need to work on. So that's why we can't close it out with fidelity to say it's not going to come back up again. >> But and I may be out of turn talking, so feel free to jump in, Lauren. um you know understanding that hiccups or changes come doesn't mean you don't have an appropriate control of your risk environment. >> So I would argue if you believe you have an appropriate control of your risk environment then you can close those risks out those issues out because >> you're never going to be able to say we don't have a discrepancy in our budget. That's just never going to happen. Um, so if that's the if that's the expectation, you're going to fail and that's never fun. Um,

084but I I would say that, you know, understanding how you control that risk to a level that audit believes is is appropriate is where you get to and say we we we that's an unmanageable risk the rest of that and we you know we may have to live with that. um not not to you're not eliminating risk, you're managing it. >> I think that means you're supposed to talk now, >> right? >> I know. I wasn't sure. Well, I always I could talk about this all day. So, no, that's really been our conversations because you take what the original audit said, which was back in fiscal 2017 or before, and I said, "Wow, budget transfers galore. What's what's going on? why are we transferring so much? And at the time, we didn't really have a

085well- definfined process or much of an answer besides we got to move money where we have the invoices. And that didn't feel like the best approach to that. And so through our more recent conversation, it's to say now my original recommendation of cool it with the budget transfers. Well, it's not, you know, that's not really the issue. It's that we have a process. We are intentional. We are planning and we also know what to expect. We expect to have these transfers. And so to us I would be in full agreement with everything that's been said about remediating the risk to the degree in which it is practical and um you know cost-effective etc. So I think uh you know maybe those are ones as Emma mentioned before as we do this maybe final year let's

086look at all you know let's look back at this full year and have a full conversation let's refresh restart for fiscal 27 what do we mark complete what do we carry forth what do we possibly refine and bring it back to you all for approval of you know different approaches different due dates etc so I think we're getting close but if you look at the maturity of all of this these are the kind kinds of conversations that management is having with us which we are so grateful that they're thinking about these recommendations to the agree that they are good. >> Um considering when the first efforts to look into and audit transportation uh what year do you kind of find that as the starting point? the year that I perfor per performed the first transportation

087audit. I think that maybe was 2017 18 2018 I think. >> U and and that was really if we if we go back that far or we even go back a little bit farther much as benefits has been a perpetual issue, transportation has been a perpetual issue and the fact that indeed this is now managing the risk versus unbelievable amount of risk every year. uh at great cost and also the risk of safety for our children and convenience for our families. Uh I think it's when you you were first doing this th this was a nightmare and the fact that it may not be a nightmare now uh that indeed we have some daylight this is this is remarkable. So, I I I I think we can't emphasize how important transportation has been to the

088district and many of the other urbans are just saying we can't afford it. Uh, period over and done with. And indeed, that's always been a prime target when the administration says we have to cut this many millions. It's really been an an act of faith and courage, frankly, to try to keep our transportation dollars because without it, our children will not be here. they don't have another means to get here. But other urbans, I think, and Mike will be telling you that that other urbans are giving it up and have already started to give it up. So, I think it's when you started and I think your role in helping us get to where we are is is to credit to the audit committee focusing on it and the work that you do. And you

089and you brought up a good point and I'm remiss in in uh um board member Bolton always reminds me that um the charters and non-publix when they decide that they need transportation all they have to do is let us know and that can be at any time during the year and we have to transport them whether we've contracted buses or not whether we have drivers or not whether we have the bandwidth to do it. um we are prescribed to transport them and have a plan within 14 days and then start transporting them so >> or be fined. Um and that also goes to both the budgeting process as well as you know then and nows if we don't know that those students exist um to be transported that puts us on our heels to from

090from the start and that's been something that we've really tried to work closely on. We work very closely with our nonpubliclix and charters, but we've received, I believe, six last year that came to us in August. Six schools asking for transportation. I believe that was eight buses, I believe that cost was $800,000. So those are the types of situations that although we see the um the internal audit and we're trying to address them, I don't know that we can necessarily close those out across the board. And so I just wanted to be very honest and transparent with starting on our heels and trying to get to the to the solution. I I a I want to make sure I it didn't come across as attacking because that was that was not the I I honestly

091believe from what I'm hearing you you are a lot further along than you may believe you are. Um and that's where I was going. you know, you're you you have to just you know that that eight schools like what are you going to do other than next year you go okay we have history that says uh we normally get at least three or four and we budget for three or four you're still not going to fix the eight so that's not where I was going with that at all >> truly understand we had that conversation even this morning with uh superintendent Murphy and Treasurer Augustine and we we we had I think four of them so far this year and trying to extrapolate what do we think that's going to look like this year >>

092and trying to to balance the not raising the budget past levels that we can't sustain but also trying to meet the requirements from ODW. >> So, thank you for coming and providing that transparency and and context um while we're here. Oh, I'm sorry. >> No, no, no. You're good. Just really quickly, I just only wanted to share that I was this year invited to be a part of the state's transportation work group. I'm not real sure why except to say um due to the work of Mr. Burkhard. So this work group um I was the only superintendent. There were legislators who were involved with this small districts uh parochial schools, charter school networks trying to figure this out. And I believe 100% we were invited to the table because of the work our department has

093done over the last several years. And I definitely receive what you said and appreciate the language that you use. It did make me smile. I did write that down. I like that. Managing the risk. Thank you. >> Okay. Well, we'll move on to the financial update. I didn't have any comments. Chris is asking if I had anything to add. I do not. I just asked for a little bit of more time and grace. Many of them don't know me because many employees have not met me yet. Um I've only been with the district 6 months tomorrow and I jumped in the deep and fast because of necessity. Um but rest assured that I'm going to do my absolute best because I come from very stringent environments um where it's a lot more rigorous than here.

094Um, and so I just hope to do the right thing and level set for the district in the right way. >> Cool. Thank you. Okay. So, I guess it's my guess it's my job to land the plane today, huh? All right. All right. So, so good discussions. Um, financial updates. How many people have seen a forecast presentation so far? Or two. Some people have seen it twice. Okay. Okay. So, we won't we won't go completely um into the forecast though. Mr. Ashley is here. He is our forecast guru. Um but but we did the forecast both um last Friday and also this Monday. Is that right? Yeah. The days are all running together here. Um the the big the big takeaways I think are that are that revenues revenues are will be down from this

095year to next year. Um and they will be incredibly flat from now through 2030. And that is that is that is the effect of property tax reform. So so all of the property tax reforms that we've talked about in this committee for some time are starting to come through and and you'll and you'll start to see this um across the board. I think I think all the forecasts are due on the 28th. And so I think you'll start to see how many districts magically found themselves in financial caution, financial distress. It should be m maybe an update we bring back to the board. um and maybe this committee as well just to show you know the impact on school districts. So, so that's kind of the other big take the other kind of big takeaway

096we talked about. I think if you go up a couple slides, Rob, uh, with the state funding formula, state, we've talked about this before, the state funding formula is out of balance. Um, because because the base costs don't get updated, but pro but district wealth does. And so, so what happens is every district appears wealthier than than it would be to collect. Um, you know, even now that we're not part of the 20 mil floor, we were on the 20 mil floor for a while. Now, one of the property tax bills moved all of our fixed um some levies into the floor. So, now we're like 34 mills or so. So, we're not even close. So, anyway, so point of all this is we're actually going to drop down to what's called the guarantee. So,

097so there are guarantees built into state funding. They're based on 20 2020 and 2021 amounts. Um for years we've been kind of on the formula which means you know based on enrollment you know we get we get our amounts on that all the things we talked about in the data audit. We will start to drop starting in 28 I believe. Is that right Kevin or 27? When do we hit the full >> That's why that's why we keep him around. He's got his stuff memorized. Um but but we actually hit the guarantee which mean which means we're not really even using the forecast and I think half the the forecast and so I think ha not the forecast the formula and so would you say half of the districts in the state are now going

098to be on on the guarantee. So so it is it is a crazy time in school funding. So that's that's kind of take away from that. I think all the other big districts are feeling are feeling it too. Um a lot of districts are going through significant cuts right now. Now, Toledo is in the middle of some mid-year reductions. Um, Cleveland, Cleveland is closing a bunch of schools and doing a massive reorganization. Columbus is also struggling with it. So, so, so, so really you'll continue to see the story of funding for public education um and and how money continues to be taken out of the system um for for public K12s. So, that's so that's that. I'm happy to take any questions on the forecast. Before I do that though, the other thing I want

099to talk about a little bit is the audit. So, so um Lauren Lauren brought it up. Some kind of late breaking news. We've been exchanging emails uh with the audio state today. I I think they're basically done with us. Um we're word smithing a couple things in the final. So, and again, this is this is like late breaking news, so we're so we're still this is today. So, the board members don't even know. Again, we're we're sending emails like probably as of 3 PM today. So, so we anticipate that will be done. Um, we'll talk about, you know, how that's going to get reported out, whether we want to do a formal conference. Um, they will come down and do a formal exit or or we can wave that and just get the written report.

100Also, as part of that, I have one copy here. We have our annual comprehensive financial report. All done. It's beautiful. Yes. >> Well, thanks, Kevin. >> Beautiful. This is how many pages, Kevin? A lot. Hundreds of pages. Yes, this is hundreds of pages. Um, it's a lot of work. It's a very important document. Very few people read it except for our except for honestly our bond underwriters, our financial advisors. Uh, if you want to borrow money, you need this. Um, but it's a lot of work. It's a very good look of all the financials of the district. I believe I believe it's on the district website now. Um, it's on board docs. We don't print a lot of these for obvious reasons. Um, we'll get copies to the board members, but we print about 20

101total. So, if someone really wants a paper copy, we can get it to you. Um, but but but for for the most part, you know, Kevin and I keep a copy, Lauren gets a copy, the board members get a copy, we have a few others we kind of hand out, but quite an accomplishment to get this done. It's a lot of back and forth. You know, there's a whole gap conversion in there. You know, if you you think I think this committee knows, you know, the state runs on a cash basis. Um, and so as Kevin laughs about that, but so we we spend a lot of time, you know, doing a gap conversion back so we can so we can do these sort of financial reports. I think that's my update. >> Um, I

102think uh the external audit that the auditor of state does is on rotation. They don't come every year. So, and when they do come, is the robustness of that audit different than uh what we get from our external auditors at all or >> It's definitely different. Um I think and and we are going back to we are going back to a contracted auditor next year. They announced that it'll go out for actually RFP. So, so audit firms can can bid on our our services. Um it's definitely different. Um you know, it's working with a whole new group of folks. a look at different things for sure. I think Kevin Kevin can attest that, you know, we were with we were with Plattenburg for a long time and and and we kind of had a playbook

103for Plattenburg, you know, and we knew what they would ask for when they would ask for and and it's great, but you know, the the auditor state folks folks have been great to work with. I will say that teams been teams been wonderful. They've been on site several times, but it's just different. You know, they look for different things. They have different, you know, kind of every year there's different personalities. And so some questions we had never had before we had to answer. Um Mr. Fields helped us out with one. Um what was it? The records the records policy, the public records policy. They said, "Do you have this posted anywhere in the building?" And we were like, "Oh, no one's ever asked that before." So So thank you customer care for having that. So

104we so we we could check that box. things like that um made it a little more challenging than maybe before. >> And you said the audit report is coming out soon. >> Is there anything in there that uh we should be will surprise us? >> No, I mean there there's a management letter. There's some verbal comments, but at this point at this point we are looking good. already report. >> Congratulations. Thank you. Mike, if you could uh and the superintendent as well uh regarding the strategic plan uh and the funding uh and the dollars that have been uh promised for funding the strategic plan uh by outside uh folks and also what we may be expecting from bellweather. I think the audit committee needs to know about that agreement that's uh been sort of shared

105and will be shared more with the board. Uh but if you could talk a little bit about that. >> Do you want to you want me to start? Go for it. >> Start. So uh probably in about October uh Mr. Cross and I were invited to a meeting with the Greater Cincinnati Foundation and they wanted to uh gift us $250,000 to help us with our strategic plan because they've heard the board talking about uh our current plan being sunset and it's time to begin to look at a new plan. And so we brought that information back to the board and I think it was a pleasant surprise for all of us. Uh so we began an RFP process. Mr. Birkhard and uh um um then during that process they knocked on the door and said,

106"Hey, uh we want to add a little bit more to that." And so instead of a quart million, they gifted us $350,000. So, uh I'll talk about part of it. Part of that will be done with a group called Rice Educational Consultants. This is a local group and they're going to help us focus on the engagement portion of getting to the strategic plan and I'll let might talk about uh the financials. >> Um the other part of this is a group called Bellweather and and so Belleather is a national firm with a lot of strategic um kind of like a strategic plan financial planning group. So they're going to help us look at look at a longer term financial plan um and kind of tie together all tie together the engagement pieces and those sort

107of pieces. So we are really excited. Um it's a donated service. So greater Foundation will be donating the services to the district and I think we have kind of a transition meeting on Friday. It's Friday afternoon. I would just add to that that this is sort of a modeling if you will after the 2016 uh preschool promise approach and this begins to be much more important than even just the strategic plan. But the bellweather piece uh begins to be important as we are now obviously much as we were with preschool promise uh facing the need uh of requesting of the of the public uh new money sources and we're hoping that this effort this process which played very well back in 2016 to for the credibility piece. So, I we want to make sure that

108the community audit committee is totally up to date with what is happening with Bellweather and and because we'll probably come back to to you all for some support and some guidance uh as to how uh Mike and the superintendent uh kind of design how that bellweather experience is going to be and we'll need your input. But it's good news for us for the near future and the more distant future I think. Yeah, I I think this is really um significant in that the Greater Cincinnati Foundation, which is our largest philanthropy group in the city, is involved and and they are the backing from that is through primarily through uh uh financial support from our leading businesses. And so this will enable us not only when we come up with a strategic plan to have uh

109get the support of the public and the audit committee but also our civic leaders and the business community. And that's going to be very critical to get everybody's buy in on this. So it's really it's really great that that uh the civic community and the philanthropy community of our city is interested in our our success. So very very exciting. Good news. Good news. I love it. All right. Um, is there any other business that we need to discuss today? Um, I did see on the um, where's the document? on the um reappointing the resolution on appointing the audit committee chair and vice chair at the bottom where it's therefore resolved at least on my copy it >> you're now the chair um it still has Dan information there >> we can turn back over to

110Dan >> no the one the the one with >> we missed that I'll work with Phyllis so we can get that up I'm glad you didn't see it. >> Any other business? >> Okay. All righty. Well, um, thank you all again, uh, to staff and committee members. The next audit committee meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, April 29th. Um, and I guess I need a uh motion for Do I need a motion to adjurnn? >> A motion. >> Second. >> Okay. Do you need to ask the people or can we just do it collectively as a group? >> Can they all stand up and leave us? >> Right. Absolutely. >> Okay.