BOOKMARK THIS FOR THE UPCOMING KANSAS LEGISLATIVE SESSION
Anti-public education legislators and lobbyists love to criticize district cash balances, often choosing to look at the balances at particular times of the year (like right before August bills get paid) or failing to acknowledge that funds are responsibly used to build savings for future projects. The fact remains public schools are held to higher standards of transparency, accountability, checks & balances compared to non-public schools. One example is a recent Legislative Post Audit study of school district cash balances.
Thanks to KASB’s Scott Rothschild for the concise summary of LPA’a findings.
Rothschild tweets:
1/After years of questions from legislators & others about school district cash balances, Legislature required a state audit of school district cash balances
2/The Legislative Post Audit was authorized Oct. 2019. A team of five state auditors tackled the subject
3/Audit analyzed cash balance data from all 286 districts & reviewed in-depth a cross-section of 25 districts. Results were released yesterday. Here is what audit found:
After adjusting for inflation, districts’ unencumbered cash balances increased 35% over 10 years (2009-19)
4/Why the increase? Auditors found most of increase used to pay off bonds approved by local voters to finance school construction projects. Also, during that period, construction costs increased 32%. Also in 2015, Legislature reduced bond and interest aid to districts
5/Another significant increase in unencumbered balances was contingency reserve fund. District leaders told auditors they increased those after ’09 recession to manage funding cuts & have funds if state delay school payments (state has done that)
6/Auditors found wide variances in districts’ balances, attributed to risk perceived by that district. Auditors found nothing inappropriate, noting best practices recommends cash balances should be adjusted based on unique financial situation of individual districts
7/After years of criticism about school district balances, audit looked into issue and made no recommendations. Here is a link to audit: https://www.kslpa.org/…/evaluating-school-districts…/
Posted to Facebook: 12/1/2020.