The Bulloch County Board of Education recently received their annual financial report from the Georgia Department of Audits & Accounts.
Board members were briefed on the FY 2024 report during the March 13 meeting, though the briefing was based on a post audit conference on the report and not the full report itself. The full report was provided the following week. Fiscal Year 2024 began July 1, 2023 and ended June 30, 2024. The timeline for preparation and completion of an audit is in line with other governmental entities and school systems around the state.
Notably, the audit found no material weaknesses identified in the Board of Education’s financial statements or accounting processes. The audit also determined that the Board of Education was in compliance with financial statements, budgeting practices, and federal awards.
Key highlights from the audit report
- Assets and deferred outflows of the School District exceeded liabilities and deferred inflows by $93.1 million. Of this amount, $55.5 million is available for spending at the School District’s discretion.
- This is an increase in the amount of $3.9 million from prior year, and as explained later in this report, was largely due to an increase in revenues from investment earnings and from our local sales and other tax collections.
- The School District had $184.3 million in expenses relating to governmental activities; only $101.7 million of these expenses are offset by program specific charges for services, grants and contributions.
- General revenues (primarily property and sales taxes) of $82.7 million were adequate to provide for these programs.
- Although program revenues make up a majority of the funding, the School District is still dependent upon tax revenues for governmental activities.
- For 2024, 44.8% of expenses were supplemented by taxes and other general revenues compared to 36.0% in 2023
Tax Revenues
- Property Taxes for Maintenance & Operations increased by $4.9 million to $30,322,641 in FY 2024
- Grants & contributions not restricted to specific programs totaled $7,411,629, and increase of $2.3 million over the previous year
- Investment earnings totaled $4,800,991
- Miscellaneous totaled $1,333,068
Sales Taxes
- SPLOST collections for capital projects totaled $14,343,527 in FY 2024
- SPLOST collections for debt services totaled $4,658,561 in FY 2024
- Local Option Sales Taxes totaled $19,128,325 in FY 2024
- Other Sales Taxes totaled $709,406
Program Expenses
The Statement of Activities shows the cost of program services and the charges for services and grants
offsetting these services. Table 3 shows the total cost of services and the net cost of services. Net
cost of services can be defined as the total cost less fees generated by the activities and intergovernmental revenue provided for specific programs. The net cost reflects the financial burden
on the School District’s taxpayers by each activity.
Budgeting Highlights
- The actual expenditures of $168.9 million were more than the final budgeted amount of $164.7
million with a variance of $4.3 million.- This difference (actual vs. final budget) was mainly attributable to expenditures that were not included in a budget amendment. These expenditures were composed of state-mandated increases in employer-funded health insurance, Board-approved raises for all staff implemented in January 2024, and increased substitute costs.
- General fund expenditures exceeded general fund revenues by $5.6 million at year end, which was
less than the excess of budgeted expenditures over budgeted revenues.
Read the full audit report here.
