Clean audit for Taylor ISD

HUNTER DWORACZYK [email protected]

Taylor Independent School District received a successful financial audit last week.

During its regular board meeting Monday, Nov. 13, the board of trustees heard a report from an auditor by Single, Clark and Company. The audit looked into the district’s public financial statements from the 2022-2023 fiscal year.

Elias Tristan, an audit associate at Single, Clark and Company, told trustees that the audit report is clean.

“We did not identify any material weaknesses or significant deficiencies in the internal controls of the district,” Tristan said. “We also did not find any noncompliance materials to the financial statements with any rules, laws and regulations applicable to the district.

He showed that the district brought in over $35 million in total revenue and its total expenditures were $31.9 million. After considering miscellaneous items, there was a $3.3 million increase in the district’s fund balance.

The district’s fund balance ended in $15.9 million due to the increase, which represents about six months of operating expenditures. Tristan said the balance was a good thing, because the generally best accepted practice is to have enough to fund three months of operating expenditures.

“The main focus of what we are doing is to verify the accuracy and the reliability of publicly issued financial statements,” Tristan said. “Once we do that, we give assurance to the outside world that these financial statements can be relied upon.” He added that most people have a negative stereotype of auditors based on thinking about agencies like the Internal Revenue Service, but certified public accountants are there to help their clients.

When beginning his report, Tristan said the most important portion of the entire report is the first paragraph. He described it as the “opinion paragraph,” where the third party gives their opinion on if the financial statements are reliable.

For Taylor ISD, Tristan said the report had a “standard, unmodified template wording,” meaning that nothing unique to the district was written.

“That’s a good thing,” Tristan said. “If we had any issue with any numbers in this packet, we’d have to modify the language in the letter. We didn’t have to do that this year.”

The public accounting firm is able to make their statement by looking at documents, such as sending letters to the bank.

Tristan said his firm uses several methods to verify expenditures, since there are so many. One method is selecting just a sample of invoices to look at.

Another way is to look at invoices with totals that exceed a certain amount.

He concluded his report by expressing gratitude to the district’s Chief Financial Officer Jina Self.

“We’re happy to say there were no audit findings this year,” Tristan said. “That’s really just a reflection on the great job that the business office does running the business side of the district.”