The Examiner U-46 News Feed

New accounting firm to conduct annual U-46 audit

By Seth Hancock
  School District U-46 will have a new financial auditor after the Board of Education approved of a $341,400 contract with Lauterbach & Amen (L&A) at its meeting on Monday, Aug. 5.
  The vote was 5-0, board members Samreen Khan and Melissa Owens were absent. It’s a five-year contract, and the cost will be paid from the education fund.
  State law requires an independent audit be down annually by a certified public accounting firm.
  The district’s current auditor, RSM, informed the district in July that it would not “stand for reappointment as the district’s independent auditor for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2024,” the proposal stated.
  L&A was the lowest of two proposals, the other coming in at $665,100. For the Fiscal Year 2024 audit, this proposal will be a 7.8 percent decrease from the cost of RSM.
  “L&A currently provides auditing services for more than 50 Illinois school districts, including several large unit districts,” the proposal stated. “The audit team recommended to serve School District U-46 has extensive experience auditing in the public sector. The team lead for the project has 15 years of public sector accounting experience while the rest of the team’s experience ranges from 7 to14 years.
  The proposal added: “The annual independent audit shall be conducted in accordance with generally accepted auditing standards and the standards applicable to financial audits contained in Government Auditing Standards. Completion of the annual audit will produce the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (AFR), which are documents prepared for the Illinois State Board of Education and a Single Audit Report, which is the document that focuses on our federal programs and is prepared for the Federal Government.”