By James Hale
Special to the Times
Tuesday, January 26, 2010 11:35 PM CST
A draft of Katy Independent School District’s financial audit by Null-Lairson P.C. was presented to the board Jan. 20 by representatives of the firm. Katy ISD recorded a strong year ending in August 2009, despite the economic downturn experienced throughout the nation.
Total net assets of the district increased by more than $16 million over the year to $134 million.
Chief financial officer Bill Moore credited increases in fund balances and decreases in the district’s debt as the primary reasons for the increase in assets.
“We basically paid down our debt while adding assets,” Moore said. “We did have a good year as far as paying off some of our outstanding debt.”
The capital projects fund went down $15 and a half million to cover capital expenditures that were not met by $24 million in bond sales. The sale of these bonds last June represents the last of bonds authorized in 2006.
“Overall our fund balances went down $2.9 million, but that’s a little bit misleading,” Moore said. “The reason for the decrease was really in the capital projects fund; if you take that out the rest of our district increased their fund balance by about $14 million.”
The special revenue funds lost $200,000. The general fund increased $8.9 million through tax collection as a result of a boom of $2.6 billion in property values.
Another boom to the KISD’s balance sheet came from expenditures, which were 4.8 percent under budget last year.
“There were a couple of individual areas [that contributed to coming in under budget] such as energy bills being lower; we actually came in $2.2 million under in fuel prices,” Moore said. “In (human resources) we saved about one million in our substitute program.”
Chuck Yaple of Null-Lairson warned the board that government scrutiny can be expected in the future. Federal funding from the recovery act that goes to Title One and special education programs will likely require further audits.
“Texas has been designated a high-risk state for program compliance under the recovery act.” Yaple said. “Through the Texas Education Agency or through the federal inspectors general we can also expect a little bit more reach.”



