Charter and tribal schools are subject to public audit just as established public schools are. In the 2020-21 school year, more than 5,600 students were served by charter and tribal schools in Washington.
SAO audits the public monies received by each type of school.
Recent audits of tribal schools reflect that the schools keep records to support revenue and expenditures, and that the schools have quickly implemented audit recommendations.
School districts have asked the State Auditor's Office for as much clarity as we can provide on what we plan to audit each fiscal year. Like districts, SAO relies on the Office of the Superintendent for Public Instruction for clear rules and guidance to provide the criteria for the audits.
Today, we published an interactive report on special education funding in Washington, as authorized under Enhanced Second Substitute Senate Bill 5091. Special education helps about 143,000 Washington students succeed in our school system.
School districts, like so many governments, continue to face challenging situations due to the COVID-19 pandemic. They have had to shutter schools, convert to remote learning quickly, and move to remote working all while continuing to provide essential services to their students. As school districts look to the start of school and beyond, they continue to face new challenges during these uncertain times.
This week, the Washington Association of School Business Officials (WASBO) is hosting a virtual version of its annual conference, which makes this an opportune time to check in regarding financial reporting and auditing issues.
Like we did in the fall, we have collected information that matters specifically to schools in an Audit Connection newsletter targeted specifically to schools and school districts, this time in a digital format.
From time to time, the State Auditor's Office compiles the articles we post on this blog into our Audit Connection print newsletter, which we distribute at meetings and conferences. Recently, we put together our first print newsletter aimed solely at education professionals.
Today we are publishing the culmination of four years of audit work on Alternative Learning Experience programs, available here.
During the week of January 9, 2017, malicious hackers conducted phishing attacks from multiple school district employees' email accounts.
What happened?
Hackers gained unauthorized access to work-related email accounts belonging to employees of multiple school districts, presumably by having the login name and password of the email account.
School districts have asked the State Auditor's Office to let them know in advance the areas they can expect auditors to emphasize in upcoming audits.
