The Allen Parish School Board is in good financial shape, according to its auditor.

“Financial operations for the year were great and there is plenty of operating capital and unassigned fund balances,” auditor Casey Ardoin of Kolder, Slaven and Company, told board members in presenting the audit earlier this week. “It was a good year.”

The audit was for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2023.

“Our district has been in good financial shape for several years,” Superintendent Brad Soileau said.

According to the audit, the board’s total assets for governmental funds were just under $38 million.The general fund, where the general operations of the school district occur and includes all the local funding to operate the school board, were $13.6 million with investments of just over $7 million. Total assets in the general fund were over $24 million with a total fund balance of just $18 million. The unassigned fund balance in the general fund was $15 million.

Total revenue in the governmental funds was $66.9 million with expenditures of $66.3 million. The total revenues in the general fund were $46 million, an increase of over $3 million from June 30, 2022, according to Ardoin.

Ardoin said the school board increased revenue in its general fund, most of it due to COVID-related grants.

In looking at expenditures, Ardoin said the net change funding balance in the general fund was $446,840.

“That figure represents a surplus that the general fund ran for the fiscal year,” he said.

In reviewing the schedule of expenditures of federal awards, Ardoin noted that the school district received COVID and Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds which were awarded to school districts as a result of the pandemic. Those funds were included in the last fiscal year, but are non-recurring funds, he said.

The School Board’s total expenditures for federal awards was $10.4 million in the fiscal year, which is high for the school district, Ardoin said. In 2022, the total expenditures of federal awards was $10.9 million and $6.2 in 2021, but in years before COVID it was only $5-$5.5 million, he said.

“These grant funds are starting to dry-up,” he said. “Moving forward there will not be as much of this money on the table.”

No deficiencies or findings were noted in the 76-page report.

“That is very difficult to accomplish in a government entity of this size,” Ardoin said. “I really believe it is something the board should be proud of. It’s a job well done.”

The audit will be released to the state Legislative Auditor’s Office.