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The Lapeer Community School Board discussed the district’s financial audit for the previous fiscal year at a recent board meeting, which can be viewed on YouTube.

Eric Formberg, with audit and accounting firm Plante Moran, presented the board with his findings. The district received an unmodified opinion, which is the highest recognition it could have achieved, which he showed was front and center in the new format of the audit.

The district had some financial challenges this year, in terms of important personnel in the business office leaving, he added.

“The job of the auditor is to create a conclusion about it. The best conclusion we can have is something called the unmodified opinion; that’s what you received,” Formberg said at the meeting. “One of the things that you'll notice if you look at the reports, if you were looking at the room compared to last year, the format of the auditor’s report is totally different.”

In the single audit that looks very closely at a specific fund, it looked at one of the Education Stabilization accounts, which was one that used the most ESSER (Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief) funds. It also received an unmodified opinion that shows the highest ranking. There were no issues in any of the reporting there, although there were some new reporting and auditing standards that were coming into play, according to the presentation.  

Another financial representative walked the board through the fine details of each of the audit funds and balances. There are some explanations about some funds that will be received as 2023 revenue instead of 2022 revenue because of delays in the business office, and some numbers that were still abnormal because of the impact of COVID-19 grants, but overall the board was pleased with the audit.