Flint Township View

C-A gets clean audit





FLINT TWP. — Carman- Ainsworth Schools has received an unmodified audit for 2012-13, which “is the highest level of assurance possible for the district’s financial statements,’’ said Thomas M. Taylor, of Taylor & Morgan CPAs in an audit presentation last week.

Taylor used a series of graphs to highlight the district’s financial health in key areas.

One was what has become the familiar litany of declining property values and revenues not keeping pace with expenses. Salaries and benefits account for 87 percent of district expenditures.

The per-pupil foundation allowance (state-aid) dropped from $8,229 in the 2008-09 school year to $7,759 in the 2012-13 school year. In that same time frame, the blended student enrollment count declined from 4,914 to 4,355.

Revenues and expenses have been trending downward but expenses have exceeded revenues every year since 2008-09. The general fund fund balance has followed the same downward curve, dropping from about $6.1 million in 2008-09 to $1.5 in 2012-13, as the district has drawn from it each year to make up its revenue shortfall.

Sinking fund revenues have declined while expenses (building and site maintenance) are going up, which would have been eased if the additional sinking fund half-mill increase has been approved by voters in the recent election, Taylor said.

Health care reform expenses are an uncertainty at this point with too many questions about when it will start and its financial impact. Retirement rates and pension funding is another concern as the the number of people drawing pensions exceeds the number of people working and paying into it.


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