School district audit turns up problem with VBT paperwork

Thomas M. Taylor of Taylor & Morgan presented the Van Buren Public Schools Board of Education with the audit of its finances for the fiscal year ending June 30.
This was at Monday’s regular meeting of the school board and the board accepted the audit.
Taylor said the district received an unmodified audit opinion, which is the highest level of assurance possible for the district’s financial statements.
He said an audit shows a snapshot in time and this report was as of June 30, 2016. He said he found all the books and records were properly stated.
During his firm’s audit, however, he discovered that some captured taxes were not reported properly to the state by Van Buren Township, so not only the township sent about $350,000 to the school district, but the state sent another $350,000 to the district to cover what it thought VBT was capturing.
Taylor said the district booked the state’s $350,000 as a liability and will send it back to the state once invoiced.
“The township has to correct that and report it to the state,” Taylor said. “I talked to the gentleman at the township and he knows he has to report it.”
After the board meeting, Finance Director Shareen Barker said she has talked to VBT Deputy Treasurer Sean Bellingham about the problem. She said he is investigating the situation.
And, she said, it’s happening again during the present fiscal year.
Director Barker said something like this happened when she worked for the Southfield Schools and it took the state five years to invoice the district for the funds it was holding to pay the state back.
In other parts of the audit, Taylor said the student enrollment for 2015-16 was 4,868 — down from the 5,030 count in 2014-15.
[In his column in today’s paper, School Supt. Pete Kudlak said the Oct. 5 Student Head Count showed the present student count as 4,734.] For the 2015-16 year, the foundation allowance per student was $7,554. For the present 2016-17 year, it is $7,667.
Taylor said the figures in the budget are a little skewed because of the money spent on the bus garage fire and the insurance paid.
He said the district is adding a little each year to the fund balance and as of June 30 it had $8,734,826, which is 18.31% of the budget. The state average for fund balances is 8.05%, excluding the Detroit Public Schools.
Taylor said he generally recommends a 15% fund balance for schools so they don’t have to borrow in the summer when the state payments come in late in the fall.
He said last year the GASB 68 financial reporting for pensions became effective. This adds the district’s share of the MPSERS unfunded pension liability to the government-wide statements.
The Van Buren Public Schools calculated portion of the unfunded liability is $69,513,233.
“We’re going to have some funding issues coming up,” Taylor said.