Fiscal Year End Reminders for Arizona School Districts
by Karin M. Smith, MBA, SFO, CFE, Consulting Partner
Posted on June 4, 2018
It is hard to believe that another school year has come to an end. This year in particular ended with a bang! Now that students are off for their summer vacations the business office will be busy with year-end close out tasks and new year start-up needs. It is important to remember many of these year-end tasks among all the tasks to complete at this time of year. The following checklist will help make sure your district doesn’t miss any of these critical tasks.
- Fund Balance Report Review – Review the District fund balance report to verify all revenues are properly reported in the right fiscal year. Remember, any revenues earned by June 30 and received by August 31 should be recorded in the FY18 fiscal year. Verify the District doesn’t have any outstanding liabilities that need to be addressed. Review cash controlled funds to ensure the District does not have negative cash, and don’t forget to review the individual clubs within the 850 fund.
- Expenditure Review for Negative Expenses – Review the District general ledger for negative expenditures. These are often a result of a journal entry error. Common errors include posting revenue/refund against an expense code without an expense or adjusting journal entry mistakes. Review these now to save time at the time of preparing the AFR.
- Grant Fund Review – Conduct a mini-completion report review of grants now, even for those grants that extend beyond the District fiscal year. There is nothing worse than finishing a completion report in December and finding coding errors in the prior fiscal year. Verify at June 30 that no grant is overspent, that expenses align to budgets and recover allowable indirect costs within the FY18 fiscal year. Don’t forget the chart of accounts changed a few years ago to require the function code 6000 with object code 6910 (indirect costs). Don’t forget to make sure the transfers in match the transfers out in the District general ledger.
- Food Service Fund – There are many year-end tasks to ensure the District doesn’t miss with the Food Service Fund. Verify the District does not have a cash balance greater than three months operating costs. When charging indirect costs, make sure the District calculates the lesser of the indirect cost base (IBC) or the federal reimbursement total to assess the indirect cost rate. One other item to verify – ensure your District has met the food service match from local funds (M&O or DAA).
- Transactions Outside the General Ledger – Many districts manage bank accounts such as auxiliary operations and bond payments outside of the general ledger. Don’t forget to make sure all these revenues and expenses are all posted to the District general ledger.
Finally, don’t forget about all the timelines at this time of year. Indirect Cost Worksheets and General Statement of Assurance verifications were both due to ADE through the Grants Management Enterprise (GME) on June 1. Proposed budgets must be approved and published no later than 10 days prior to the budget hearing date set to adopt the 2019 Adopted budget. The Adopted budget must be approved no later than July 15. The Trans 40-1/Bus Inventory must be submitted by July 15 as well. The Advice of Encumbrance must be submitted to the CSS by July 18. There are many other items that will be submitted, so pay close attention to communications from ADE and the CSS office over the next several weeks.
