Republic School District gets high marks in audit

The Republic School District received an unmodified, or clean opinion in an audit conducted by KPM CPAs and Advisors, based in Springfield.
The results of the audit were presented to the Republic School Board during their meeting on Thursday, Dec. 20. Rebecca Friedrich, CPA, presented the findings to the board. She stated the opinion was “the best opinion you can get.”
“(It) means we believe the district’s financial statements are presented … correctly with the cash basis of accounting,” she said.
Friedrich also went over some of the specific findings of the audit, beginning with the district’s general fund.
“The general fund had an increase of about $328,000, leaving it with $13 million at year end,” she said. “The general fund had over 29-percent reserves or over three months, that’s a really good reserve. We typically recommend 25-percent.”
Next, she spoke on the district’s debt service fund.
“The debt service fund ended at $7.7 million, this was an increase of about $6.4 million from the previous year,” Friedrich said. “The reason that balance is so high is because the district issued crossover refunding bonds, I think later in ’17, and the old bonds can’t be paid off until the future, either, so those funds are still held in the district’s name until those can be paid off. Six million dollars is in escrow to pay off future debt service, and $1.5 million is to pay your loan debt service.”
Finally, Friedrich covered the capital projects fund and the district’s cash balance. “Fund for capital projects ended at $6.3 million, and that was a decrease of about $1.2 million,” Friedrich said. “In total, the cash balance of the district increased about $5.6 million.”
Friedrich also told the board that KPM had tested the district for compliance with requirements for spending federal funds; specifically, they tested Child Nutrition Plus Serve, the district’s food service program, and Title I. KPM also had checked to make sure the district was properly reporting attendance to the Missouri Department of Secondary and Elementary Education (DESE). In both cases, Friedrich stated, there were no findings to report, meaning the district was compliant in both areas.
Friedrich concluded by recommending that “everyone (in the district) who has coding responsibilities” use a new coding structure required by DESE. She also praised the district’s personnel for their cooperation and professionalism during the audit.
“Everybody is very cooperative, and very friendly and more than willing to help us out, which we appreciate,” Friedrich said.
Dr. Chance Wistrom, superintendent of schools, released the following statement about the audit’s findings:
“The district is very pleased to receive an unmodified and clean audit finding,” he wrote. “The annual independent audit of each major fund was completed and the auditor did not identify any deficiencies in internal control. There were also no indications of noncompliance or other matters that are required to be reported under Government Auditing Standards.”