Seaside School, Inc
Minutes
Finance Committee Monthly
Date and Time
Friday September 15, 2023 at 9:15 AM
Founded in 1996
Serving Students in Grades 5 - 12
We seek to sustain an educational community where an emphasis on academic excellence is complemented by our concern for each learner’s personal growth and intellectual, aesthetic, and psychological development. The curriculum is developmentally responsive – actively engaging students in learning skills in context, integrative – directing students to connect learning to daily lives, and exploratory – enabling students to discover their abilities, interests, learning styles, and ways that they can make contributions to society.
Information on procedures for public comment can be found at https://www.seasideschools.net/domain/35.
If anyone needs special assistance to participate in the public input session, every effort will be made to provide an appropriate accommodation. When requesting accommodations for public input, please allow no less than 1 business day notice prior to the scheduled meeting.
Specific issues about a particular student should only be addressed to the school’s Director of Student Services, rather than the Board of Directors.
All public comments will be taken under advisement by the Board, but will not elicit a written or spoken response. The names of persons providing public comment and a brief summary of topics or input will be included in the meeting minutes published. A response will be provided to the stakeholder within seven (7) days.
Committee Members Present
A. Jordan (remote), D. Lilienthal (remote), F. Brown (remote), L. Meadows (remote), T. Brooks (remote), T. Miller (remote), T. Peterson (remote)
Committee Members Absent
None
Guests Present
Robert Walker (remote)
I. Opening Items
A.
Record Attendance
B.
Call the Meeting to Order
C.
Approve Minutes
Need to add Kav as a member, Tricia in attendance.
II. 2022-2023 Audit Draft
A.
Drafted Audit
III. Finance Meeting Topics (2023-2024 Budget)
A.
2023-2024 Budget Updates/Recommendations
Purpose of moving the school operations costs from the foundation expenses to the school expenses:
- Creates a cleaner operations budget to evaluate and measure the effectiveness and profitability
- Allows the committee and finance team to review cash in vs cash out.
- Restricted revenue needs to be utilized first.
Want to be cautious of how we spend ARP and LCIR as it is not guaranteed multiple years.
B.
ARP Funds
Want to specifically earmark the funds to align them to the budgeted expenses.
The goal is to minimize expenses that are recurring.
C.
SFS Budget Update
No concerns noted on the current budget. Bank statements and balance sheets provided from SFS...
We will need to take a draw from the foundation to cover cash flow issues. The county will disperse funds based on last year funding until the January 1 verification.
Two FTE periods.
IV. Long Term Planning
A.
Five Year Budget Work
B.
Salary Increase Allocation (Report due 10/1)
We have met these requirements.
Lily will be working on this report.
With the new salary scale, this should not be an issue.
C.
Long Term Budget Items
Reviewed the items on the agenda
D.
Internal Controls and Finance Policy Review
Discussed the items on the agenda.
Bob Walker, school auditor, attended the meeting and added the following key points:
- Specialize in charter schools (over 100 a year)
- Work with SFS on internal controls
Questions from Committee Members:
- Where do the financials come from (SFS does pages 11-13 cash basis) (9-11 are financial fund statements) Pages 9-10 are designed to assist the reader. Overall the statements all show the current school year fiscal operations.
- Should we be concerned of the negative net position (pension liability is a large portion of this) There is unfunded Liability if the school closes. Normal issue with charter schools that participate in the FRS. Less than 10% of the charter schools are in FRS.
- This is the first year Walker/King doing the audit. They received supporting documents from SFS and read past audits.
- Any issues you saw that we should be aware of? Look at the fund statements to see the year by year approach (page 13)
- It's a clean opinion report, no findings or deficiencies noted. The auditing profession works to identify fraud through a framework of asking questions, test of payroll, vendor lists, etc.
Audit will require final paperwork and approval of board to be sent to District.