Once again the business audit came out clean for Great Bend’s school district. Adams, Brown, Beran & Ball handled the audit for USD 428 and delivered a clean or unmodified opinion on the financial statements for the district, the highest opinion ABBB can offer.
Vickie Dreiling, with ABBB, compared Great Bend’s school district with nine similar-sized districts, and says USD 428’s cash supply is lower but so is their debt.
Vickie Dreiling Audio
The district’s ending unencumbered cash balance as of June 30, 2017 was $18,306,289 which is up approximately $88,000 from the previous year. Dreiling says USD 428’s debt is $2.6 million with the highest comparison school at $232 million in debt. Great Bend’s debt-to-cash ratio is .14 compared to some of the schools with a ratio of nine. The amount of debt the district has is on pace to be paid off by September of 2018.
Dreiling also noted an audit was executed on the millions of federal dollars the district receives.
Vickie Dreiling Audio
USD 428 ended the year with over $3.9 million in federal expenditures.
The school board approved the report with a 7-0 vote and now the report and corrective action plan will be submitted to the Federal Audit Clearing House.