Jay Curtis

Following a week-long in person auditing process Park County School District 1 has once again received a clean audit. 

This is one of the goals of the district’s business department, said Mary Jo Lewis, business service coordinator.

During the board’s Jan. 16 meeting, Superintendent Jay Curtis' contract was also extended until June 30, 2026.

Clean audit

The audit report was presented by Cindy Kretzer of Porter, Muirhead, Cornia and Howard. This year’s presentation was structured to explain how to read and understand an audit report and the process of audit, for the benefit of new board members as well as members of the public in attendance. Lewis aided in this presentation but was not part of the auditing process.

The district received both an independent audit and a single audit, the latter because of the amount of federal funding received by Powell schools; a single audit was not always as common in other state schools but has become more so because of COVID era federal funding, Lewis said. 

A single audit typically looks at one or two programs but this year they looked at three programs over the week, including ESSR grants. The auditors do not look at the district’s finances as a whole but take a sample of typically one to two programs. This year, three programs were looked at because of the amount of federal funding that the district receives.

School districts will receive a single audit if they have a federal program “that is in excess of $750,000,” presentation material from Lewis said.

Both audits received an unmodified opinion, meaning that there were no findings in the audit.

Kretzer clarified that while the district had more expenditures than revenue on paper this was not due to mismanagement but changes in how property taxes are calculated, which changed how revenue is determined as revenue. Other system changes also contributed to this change. 

PCSD1’s expenditures for 2023 were $29,277,024 and its revenue was $25,501,356.

“It's easy to look at that and go, ‘Oh my gosh, what have we done? It's nothing.’ We are in no worse financial position than we were last year, it has to do with the systems and the way that cash flows through the system,” Curtis said. “We're in excellent shape, nothing has changed on that front, it's just things have changed.”

Superintendent until 2026

Ahead of the district’s audit report Curtis’ contract was renewed through June 30, 2026. Curtis’ compensation will be determined at a later date.

“I think you do a super job, you’re great to work with, you do a great job with faculty…I think we’re fortunate to have you in our district,” board chair Kim Dillivan said. 

Curtis said he’s fortunate to be in the district. His contract extension was approved unanimously by the board.