Purpose of Audit

The purpose of our audit was to evaluate the District’s financial condition for the period July 1, 2014 through September 30, 2015.

Background

The Huntington Union Free School District is located in the Town of Huntington in Suffolk County. The District, which operates eight schools with approximately 4,650 students, is governed by an elected seven-member Board of Education. Budgeted appropriations for the 2015-16 fiscal year are $120.4 million.

Key Findings

• From 2012-13 through 2014-15, total actual revenues exceeded expenditures by as much as $4.1 million and no amount of appropriated fund balance was used to finance operations so the District’s tax levy may have been higher than necessary to fund District operations.
• Because the Board adopted budgets with overly conservative expenditure estimates, unassigned fund balance increased beyond 4 percent of the ensuing year’s budget.

Key Recommendations

• Develop procedures to ensure it adopts more reasonable budgets to avoid raising more real property taxes than necessary.
• Discontinue the practice of adopting budgets that result in the appropriation of unassigned fund balance that will not be used to fund District operations.