Clymer school board receives audit
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CLYMER -- The Clymer Central School Board of Education recently heard a presentation from R.A. Mercer on an audit that the company just completed for the school.
During the October Board of Education meeting, Chris Zera with R.A. Mercer presented the audit to the board. The audit was completed in August, he said, adding that there were no findings that came out of it. Other information from the audit included that the school's assets exceeded their liabilities, an increase in district revenue, and an increase in state aid, but with a decrease in federal aid. It was noted that the federal aid decrease was larger than the state aid increase, due to the end of grants that schools received from COVID.
Some of the other items mentioned in the audit were the district's expenses increasing by around $32,000, consistent with the prior year. Zera said the instruction category continues to be the largest for expenses, totalling about $8 million for 2026. Zera also discussed an increase in the general fund and other general fund details, and other general information included as a part of the audit, such as the required letter to governance. The most important part of the audit was that there were no findings from the audit and no issues with any estimates or disagreements with management.
It was also noted that going forward into the next audit there could be some additional work required if the potential merger between Clymer, Sherman and Panama school districts were to be approved by the three districts.
Business Official Jarrett Wiggers said there is a corrective action response to the audit and recommendations for the district, even though there were no findings from the audit.
"There weren't findings in the report but with the recommendations that he gave us I wanted to have a plan for those so we could have that in writing and follow that a little bit this year as we move forward," Wiggers said. "The first thing he mentioned was the unassigned fund balance, so the corrective action plan for that would be to continue to monitor that throughout this year and if possible we can reduce that fund balance by contributing funds towards the capital reserve to get ready for the next project."
The other recommendation looked at the potential changes that could come with the merger, and Wiggers said the corrective action plan would be to continue to monitor the status of that as well. They would continue to utilize the consultants the district has along with each individual district's financial planner to come up with a plan, organize key players and come up with tasks for how to address that.
"I think more than anything he wanted to make sure we understood that if this is something that is going to happen this time, there is a lot of action that is going to have to take place very quickly," Wiggers said. "We are all aware of that, but I think for him it was just making sure that that is something we are all talking about."
Some conversation was held by the board about how this would be addressed moving forward if the merger were to happen, with the note that all three districts currently use different financial planners. It was said to be premature to go through the process to choose one financial planner at this time for the districts if the merger happens, but it was said that conversations could start to happen between the three districts about looking to put together an RFP and outlining what the expectations for that potential financial planner would be.