PB R-I gets clean audit

The Poplar Bluff R-I district received a clean audit report this month, with most major differences attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The 2019-20 audit report, presented by Steven Austin with Kraft, Miles and Tatum LLC, states the district ended the year “financially sound.”

The district’s general fund ended the year with a surplus of $4.57 million, which is about $2 million higher than expected.

Austin said most of that is attributed to a higher than average local tax collection, a change in the state funding formula and CARES relief funding.

Through several state withholdings, the district did not receive $1.3 million in state funding, according to the report.

However, at the local level, it received a slight increase of $358,601, the report continued.

Over the year, the district could collect Average Daily Attendance on pre-kindergarten students, which helped raise that metric.

State funding is partially based on student attendance/enrollment, which had been trending downward for the district, according to the report.

The district also received over $2.3 million through various CARES funding programs. Not all of the CARES money was used the previous school year and is still available in the current school year.

The district received just under $1.3 million in COVID-19 higher education relief from the U.S. Department of Education, according to the audit report.

The other just over $1 million came from the U.S. Department of Agriculture through a child nutrition program, which funds student meals for those on Free and Reduced Lunch.

“That program was larger due to COVID expenditures,” Austin said.

The district distributed meals to all students for free while not in school during Missouri’s closure and the summer, which brought up the funding for the program.

“Overall, it was a good year,” Austin said. “Challenging, obviously, with COVID money. That seems to be a trend. COVID is causing a lot of difficulties, but we worked through the challenges we had.”