2005 Cafr Budget Analysis For The School District Of Hillsborough County

2005 CAFR Budget Analysis for The School District of Hillsborough County

The School District of Hillsborough County, educating over 187,000 students between pre-kindergarten and twelfth grade, is the ninth largest School District in the nation and third largest in Florida during the school year of 2004-05. The financial service responsibility for the School District of Hillsborough County is with the Division of Business and its associates. The Division of Business is responsible for, among other obligations, generating and presenting the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) for review by KPMG, LLP, and approval by the Superintendent of Schools, MaryEllen Elia and the School Board of Hillsborough County. If the CAFR is deemed to be correct than the District may receive an award from the Government Finance Officers Association.

Population

The population in Hillsborough County during 2004 was 1,147,120, an increase of over 31,000 from 2003. This increase is expected to continue at a rate of 30,000 or more during the next 20 years. In 2004 there were a total of 199 public school facilities and 13,959 teachers. The 4th through 8th grade group consisted of 52,283 students, which is the largest group of the over 187,000 students.

Governmental Structure

The Hillsborough County School system's financial operations are managed by the school's "Business Division". This division oversees the operations of seven different financial related functions.

* Accounting's primary function is to monitor and update the financial ledgers. They manage internal inter-company transactions such as interdepartmental billings. Finally, at fiscal year end they publish the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) based on data collected.

* Accounts Payable updates the Payables Ledger that feeds into general ledger maintained by the Accounting department. They process invoices and issue checks to vendors for payment.

* The Budget department tracks funds availability and expenditures by department and delivers reports at year end summarizing spending in various categories.

* The Logistics and Inventory department maintains the physical and accounting controls over any physical items such as: furniture, textbooks, office supplies, mail, buildings and equipment.

* The Payroll department issues checks to employees which automatically update the Payroll ledger, which feeds into the General Ledger maintained by Accounting.

* The Purchasing department specializes in procuring goods and services for the school system while meeting various objectives. Namely, this department seeks to fulfill the systems requirements while meeting budget constraints and optimizing usage of minority owned companies.

* The Student Nutrition department is a specialized department unique to the school system. This department is charged with serving over 235,000 meals every school day to students on various lunch programs. The operation of these seven departments is overseen by the "Business Division", but the sum financial activity is collected by the Accounting department. The results are then published annually (fiscal periods) in the CAFR.

Size of budget and its interrelationship with the CAFR

The District adheres to the guidelines presented by the generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) and by the Government Accounting Standards Board (GASB). The beginning budget for the year 2005 amounted to $1,461, 967,000, including components. Revenues which were raised for the District from local, state and federal sources totaled $1,587,893,000. Due to assessed needs during the year budget amendments were brought before the School Board of Hillsborough County to revise the original budget. An increase in costs due to higher than expected new student enrollment was off set by county-wide reductions in expenditures which lowered the districts final budget totals.

The changes in the budget during the year, expected and unexpected, are reflected in the CAFR in both the financial tables and the accompanying notes. Maintaining a strict adherence to the budget is of vast importance for the District and the CAFR. Since the need to show a profit is not of any real importance, adhering to the budget is one sign of the Districts capabilities.

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