Cheltenham finance committee hears 2023–24 audit; auditor reports clean opinion and outlines fund-balance assignments

At a meeting of the Cheltenham School District finance committee, Carl Hogan, lead auditor from Clifton Larson Allen, presented the district's independent audit for the year ended June 30, 2024, and said the firm issued an unmodified, clean audit opinion.

"We have an unmodified clean audit opinion consistent with what was being reported to you during 2023, 2024," Hogan said. He told the committee there were no material weaknesses or significant deficiencies in the audited financial statements and no reportable noncompliance in the audit of those statements.

Hogan reviewed required supplementary information and the budgetary comparison schedule, saying actual revenues for the audited year exceeded budgeted amounts. He reported total audited general-fund revenues around $138 million versus a budget near $132 million, producing a positive variance of roughly $5.6 million (about $4 million from local sources and $1.2 million from state sources). After expenditures and a transfer to capital, Hogan reported the net increase in fund balance for the year was about $1.5 million, leaving an ending general fund balance of about $28.2 million.

Hogan urged conservative budgeting for future years, noting much of the positive variance was one-time revenue such as investment earnings. "You don't want to rely on those revenues to continue to fund continuing operations when it's only one-time revenues," he said, recommending that one-time proceeds be transferred to capital for one-time outlays.

The auditor also emphasized supplementary reporting tied to federal awards. He said the district's federal-awards testing covered ESSER, Title I and the IDEA special-education cluster, and noted the major program threshold (then $750,000) will increase to $1,000,000 in the coming cycle, altering compliance testing scope.

Committee members asked for clarification on Pennsylvania Department of Education rules for unassigned fund balance. Hogan said the PDE looks at the next year's expenditures and limits unassigned fund balance to 8% of those expenditures; any excess should be assigned or committed. "There's something called unassigned fund balance, and the Pennsylvania Department of Education says they're gonna look at your next year's expenditure budget, and you can't have more than 8% unassigned fund balance," he said.

No formal board action was taken on the audit during the committee meeting; Hogan fielded questions and made himself available for follow-up as the administration integrates audit results into budgeting work.