We have evaluated the efforts of the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) to monitor the financial information of certain educational entities, including school districts, independent charter schools, and private schools in Wisconsin’s Parental Choice programs and in the Special Needs Scholarship Program (SNSP).
We focused our evaluation primarily on DPI’s reviews of the fiscal year (FY) 2022-23 audited financial statements and related audit findings. We evaluated the timeliness with which information was submitted to DPI, and the time it took DPI to review the information submitted to it. We also analyzed the type of financial audit opinion that CPA firms provided to educational entities, as well as the types of internal control issues that were identified by CPA firms. We recommend DPI establish or modify a number of written policies related to its monitoring and reviews of audited financial information for school districts, independent charter schools, Parental Choice program schools, and SNSP schools. We make 22 recommendations to DPI for improvements.
