Each district's Certified Annual Report (CAR — the unaudited figures it files with the state) compared to its audited General Fund results · June 2026
Every Iowa district files a Certified Annual Report (CAR) with the Department of Education by September 15 — its own, unaudited account of the year. Months or years later, an independent audit reports the same year. The two should match. When a district's self-reported numbers don't reconcile to what the auditors ultimately find, that's a red flag about the quality of its books.
Below: the gap between CAR and audited ending General Fund balance, by district and year. Green means they tie (within rounding); warmer colors mean larger gaps; a red outline flags a gap over 1% and $250K.
Iowa City's CAR said the district added $1.04M to its General Fund in FY2023; the audit found the true gain was $88K — an overstatement of ~$951K. The CAR's ending balance came in $844K (+8.3%) too high, and its unassigned reserves — the liquid, spendable cushion and the solvency-ratio numerator — were 29% too high ($6,410,331 reported vs $4,960,343 audited). Even the year's beginning balance was off by $-106,965. This is the year the auditor declared a material weakness — "financial statements required significant revisions."
| District | FY2020 | FY2021 | FY2022 | FY2023 | FY2024 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ankeny CSD | +0.0% | +0.7% | +0.0% | +0.0% | +2.9% |
| Burlington CSD | -0.0% | -0.0% | -0.3% | -0.0% | -0.0% |
| Cedar Rapids CSD | +0.0% | +0.0% | +4.5% | +0.0% | +0.0% |
| College CSD (Prairie) | -0.0% | +0.0% | +0.0% | +0.3% | -0.0% |
| Davenport CSD | -0.0% | +2.1% | +1.6% | -1.5% | +2.1% |
| Des Moines Independent CSD | -0.0% | +0.0% | +0.0% | -0.0% | +3.5% |
| Dubuque CSD | +0.0% | +0.0% | -0.0% | -0.0% | +0.0% |
| Iowa City CSD | -0.0% | -1.0% | -1.1% | +8.3% | +1.6% |
| Johnston CSD | +0.0% | +0.0% | +0.0% | -0.0% | -0.5% |
| Linn-Mar CSD | +0.0% | -0.0% | +0.0% | -0.0% | +0.2% |
| Muscatine CSD | +0.0% | +0.0% | -0.0% | -0.0% | +0.0% |
| Pleasant Valley CSD | -0.0% | -0.0% | +0.0% | -0.0% | +0.0% |
| Waterloo CSD | +0.0% | -0.0% | -0.0% | +0.0% | +2.1% |
| Waukee CSD | -0.0% | -0.0% | +0.9% | +0.0% | -0.0% |
| West Des Moines CSD | -0.0% | +0.0% | +0.0% | -0.0% | -0.0% |
A second view: instead of the total ending balance, this is the spendable portion — unassigned + assigned — which excludes money that is nonspendable, restricted, or committed. It's the cushion a district can actually use and the numerator of the solvency ratio. (The annual CAR workbooks only carry this split for FY2023–FY2024.)
| District | FY2023 | FY2024 |
|---|---|---|
| Ankeny CSD | +0.4% | -3.4% |
| Burlington CSD | -0.0% | -0.0% |
| Cedar Rapids CSD | +0.0% | +0.0% |
| College CSD (Prairie) | +0.4% | -0.0% |
| Davenport CSD | -1.7% | +2.3% |
| Des Moines Independent CSD | +1.0% | +4.8% |
| Dubuque CSD | +0.0% | +0.0% |
| Iowa City CSD | +29.2% | -8.6% |
| Johnston CSD | -0.0% | -0.6% |
| Linn-Mar CSD | -0.0% | -0.4% |
| Muscatine CSD | -0.0% | +0.0% |
| Pleasant Valley CSD | -0.0% | +0.0% |
| Waterloo CSD | -89.0% | +3.0% |
| Waukee CSD | -28.2% | -22.8% |
| West Des Moines CSD | -0.0% | +0.0% |
Read this one carefully. Where a district's total balance ties (table above) but its available figure differs — e.g. Waterloo and Waukee — the dollars were just sorted into different buckets (spendable vs. committed/restricted); the bottom line still reconciles, so it's a classification difference, not a missing-money problem. The case that matters is where the total is also off: Iowa City overstated its spendable reserves by +29% in FY2023 ($6,410,331 reported vs $4,960,343 audited) on top of an overstated total — i.e. the CAR made the usable cushion look far healthier than the audit found. Iowa City's newly filed FY2024 audit again didn't match its CAR: the CAR overstated the total ending balance by ~$314K, while its unassigned figure came in ~$1.4M below the audit (CAR ~$14.9M vs audited ~$16.3M) — reclassifications and revisions of the kind the year's five material weaknesses would predict.
Most CARs reconcile to the penny — the majority of cells tie within rounding, which is what a clean district looks like. The exceptions cluster in a few districts. Iowa City's FY2023 gap (+8.3%) is the largest in the matrix and lands in the exact year its audit was filed 26 months late with a material weakness. Davenport shows a persistent ~2% gap across four straight years — a chronic reconciliation pattern worth watching. The FY2024 flags sit on the newest audits, which were only recently finalized.