The Detroit Lakes School Board accepted a positive audit review this week with many compliments from the auditor.
Kern DeWenter Viere firm representative Steve Wischmann said the auditors were pleased with the outcome and the audit process.
"We gave you the highest level of rating," he told the school board Monday.
The district saw some changes in how state and federal money is dispersed due to the fact that it received some American Recovery and Reinvestment Act money. Therefore, some of the state dollars that were cut were replaced by federal funds.
The decline in state funds comes with a 12.14 percent increase in local property taxes. According to the audit report, the general fund revenue increased by $223,171 or 0.85 percent from last year.
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The largest source of revenue is determined by a state formula based on per-student funding and consists of a mix of property tax and state aid revenue. The formula went down by $51 per pupil over the last year.
However, "the decrease in the formula allowance was offset by an increase in enrollment, which generated more state aid in the General Education Formula for 2009-10," the report stated.
Overall revenues were up 1.64 percent or approximately $29.8 million and overall expenditures were up 2.69 percent or about $28.6 million.
The district was accurate in its budgeting process -- actual revenues for the general fund came in 1.02 percent over budget and actual expenditures were 0.16 percent under budget.
"Very good forecasting, very good budgeting," Wischmann said.
The unreserved fund balance at year-end came in at about $3.9 million, which is down from $4.1 million in 2009.
"This is the best district from an audit perspective that we work with," Wischmann said.
