ICCSD · Reading the FY25 filing before the audit lands

The FY25 self-report has FY24's fingerprints on it.

The FY25 audit isn't done yet. But the district's own FY25 filing is already public — and read against the FY24 audit findings, four things in it look like the same broken controls still at work. Here's what to watch for, in plain English.

The 60-second version
What's a "CAR"? Every Iowa district files a Certified Annual Report with the state each fall — its own, unaudited account of the year that just ended. An independent audit checks the same year later. The two are supposed to match. When the self-report shows odd patterns, it's an early read on the quality of the books the auditors will eventually open. For FY24, the audit ultimately revised the district's self-reported figures — so the FY25 self-report is worth reading the same way.

The four things worth watching

1 A whole fund was balanced to exactly $0.00 strongest sign

The Student Activity Fund — the money behind clubs, athletics, and dozens of individual student accounts — reports spending that equals every dollar available to the penny, landing on a perfectly round zero:

Starting balance$384,374.40
+ Money in (incl. a $341,425.99 transfer in)$3,463,385.20
= Total available$3,847,759.60
− Money out$3,847,759.60
= Ending balance$0.00

A fund made of hundreds of separate club balances essentially never nets to zero on its own. And the balance sheet is stranger still: the fund holds $1,010,365.92 of assets (almost all cash) that are exactly offset by $1,010,365.92 of liabilities — mostly a $974,854.33 IOU back to the General Fund — leaving zero equity. The district even moved $341K into the fund during the year, and it still lands on zero.

Why it matters: This is the signature of a forced ("plugged") balance, not a reconciled one — and the General Fund is quietly floating it. It's the same fund the FY24 audit singled out: the audit found it $983K in the red, while the self-report had shown it comfortably positive. Two years running, this fund's self-reported number hasn't reflected reality. (A second, smaller fund — "Other Capital Projects" — was zeroed out the same way: $916,094.72 in, $916,094.72 out, $0.00 left.)
2 ~$2.8M of prior-year corrections, in both directions big deal

Last year's filing recorded $0 in adjustments to its starting balances. This year's filing is full of them:

Upward corrections to opening balances+$1,191,121.74
— incl. a round $1,111,050.00 in the self‑insurance fund 
Downward corrections to opening balances−$1,634,216.84
Gross corrections pushed through FY25~$2.8M

Money was being added back to some funds and taken out of others to fix what the books said at the start of the year. The single largest piece is a suspiciously round $1,111,050.00 — the kind of number that comes from an estimate, not a reconciliation.

Why it matters: Large corrections flowing both ways are the classic look of books that were wrong going in and are being patched piece by piece — exactly what "no monthly reconciliations" produces. It maps straight to the FY24 material weaknesses in year-end closing and reconciliations.
3 The whole report stands on an unaudited starting point big deal

The FY25 filing was prepared Nov 20, 2025 — roughly seven months before the FY24 audit was even finished (auditor's report dated June 10, 2026). So every opening balance is a self-reported carry-forward that no auditor had checked. The General Fund opens at the unaudited figure:

FY25 opening balance used (self-reported)$19,366,903.52
What the FY24 audit later found was correct$19,053,053
Overstated starting point~$314,000

None of the $2.8M in corrections above moved the General Fund toward that audited number.

Why it matters: FY25 is built on a starting line the FY24 audit had already proven was too high. When the FY24 audit story repeats — self-reported figures revised down once the auditors arrive — FY25 is set up to follow the same path.
4 The same heavy capital spending that broke the FY24 budget worth checking

FY24's headline violation was spending about $19.5M over the legal budget in the construction/capital category. FY25 shows the same spend-down intensity:

SAVE (penny-sales-tax construction fund)$45.8M → $9.2M
— spent $55.7M on $19.1M of revenue−$36.6M
PPEL (physical plant & equipment)$15.3M → $8.4M
— spent $20.2M on $13.2M of revenue−$6.9M
Why it matters: The self-report doesn't contain the budget-vs.-actual schedule, so this isn't a confirmed overage — but the same capital-spending pace plus the same weak controls is the recipe that produced FY24's budget-law breach. The FY25 budget-authority schedule is the first document to pull to see whether it happened again.

FY24 finding → FY25 clue, side by side

How each early-warning sign lines up with something the FY24 audit already documented.

What the FY24 audit foundWhat the FY25 self-report shows
Student activity fund was $983K in the red, and mis-statedActivity fund forced to exactly $0.00; its $1.0M of cash is fully offset by an IOU to the General Fund
Material weaknesses in year-end closing & bank reconciliations (no monthly recs)~$2.8M of prior-year corrections flowing both ways, including a round $1.11M plug
Self-reported figures revised by the audit (General Fund overstated ~$314K)FY25 opens on that same unaudited, overstated figure — filed 7 months before the FY24 audit was done
~$19.5M spent over the legal budget in the capital categorySAVE and PPEL drawn down ~$43M combined — same capital-spending intensity (budget schedule still to be checked)
$38M moved between funds without the required board approvalImproved: interfund transfers now balance ($14.16M in = $14.16M out); see below

What actually looks better in FY25 credit where due

The interfund mechanics tie out this year

The catch: that same $974,854.33 is the IOU the General Fund holds against the Student Activity Fund — i.e., the mechanism that zeroed the activity fund in clue #1. The plumbing balances; how it was made to balance is the question.

Bottom line for the board

On its face, the FY25 self-report is clean and adds up — there's no missing money visible, and the General Fund still shows a healthy ~$18.3M balance. But it carries the same DNA as the problems the FY24 audit documented: a fund forced to zero instead of reconciled, a pile of prior-year corrections, an unaudited starting point, and the same capital-spending pace that broke the budget once already.

Because the district didn't correct its controls until the back half of FY26, all of FY25 ran under those same practices. The realistic expectation is that the still-pending FY25 audit surfaces much of what FY24 did — repeat material weaknesses in closing and reconciliations, another look at the activity fund, and a real chance of a budget-authority or capital-fund correction. Worth asking management now: the FY25 budget-vs.-actual schedule, why the activity fund nets to zero, and what the $1.11M round-number adjustment represents.

Sources: Iowa City Community School District Certified Annual Report, FY2025 (filed Nov 20, 2025) and FY2024 — Treasurer's Report by Fund, Balance Sheet by Fund, and Revenue/Expenditure detail; the district's Financial and Compliance Report, Year Ended June 30, 2024 (independent auditor's report dated June 10, 2026) and corrective action plan. FY24 audited General Fund ending balance ($19,053,053) and the CAR-vs.-audited comparison are drawn from this project's self-report-vs-audited matrix. All FY25 figures are the district's own unaudited filing; the independent FY25 audit was not yet issued as of this writing.