Audit: Altoona Area SD reports $33 million fund balance; $2.2 million operating deficit tied to capital transfer

Dave Scott of audit firm Young Oaks Brown presented the Altoona Area School District’s single audit and financial statements to the board and said the district’s audited general-fund balance was about $33,000,000 as of June 30, 2025.

"The audit balance is 33,000,000 of fund balance at that point," Scott said while walking trustees through the thick audit report and the thinner federal-report supplement. He described the 'thick' report as the financial statements and the 'thin' report as the federal single-audit schedule.

Scott told trustees the district recorded an operating deficit of approximately $2,200,000 on the statement of revenues, expenses and changes in fund balance. He said that deficit was driven primarily by a $3,000,000 transfer the district made into a capital reserve fund "for future repairs." He also said the district reported about $13,700,000 in federal program expenditures for the year and that auditors found no federal compliance findings in the programs they tested.

The audit team recorded one finding in the financial-statement audit related to credit-card charges and third-party invoice retention. Scott said many Amazon purchases lacked locally stored vendor invoices because the district had relied on Amazon to retain them; auditors recommended the district implement a process to download and store those invoices in its own server.

Trustees voted to approve the single audit and financial statement for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2025, during new business.

Why it matters: The fund-balance and transfer numbers affect available operating reserves and capital planning. The auditor’s single finding concerns internal control over documentation for purchases and recommends a straightforward administrative fix.