Update to auditor’s report shows Springboro Schools in good position

In the updated forecast, Springboro is not flagged as having issues and has only a handful of items that the Auditor of State flagged as something to watch.

“I’ve had extensive conversations about this because it is in no way reflective of our actual situation,” said Springboro Treasurer Terrah Stacy.

This is the first year that the Ohio Auditor of State began to issue a financial health indicator report for public school districts. The AOS previously issued the reports, which look at spending, revenue and long-term financial health, for cities and counties.

The state updated the inputs as the initial run of reports did not properly account for restricted net pension and retirement assets, said David Roorbach, AOS press secretary.

“Without getting too technical, the formula was double counting pension/retirement obligations, so we updated and reissued the reports,” Roorbach said.

He noted that some schools would have seen a change in their indicators.

“FHI reports do not affect how we audit school districts — they are simply financial planning tools for use by district administrators,” Roorbach said.

The district would still have more than $6 million in reserves by the end of that school year, according to the same forecast.

Stacy said her best understanding of why the report upgraded Springboro’s finances is a discrepancy in how Springboro does accounting versus how the auditor’s office converted the system, and possibly, when the auditor’s office reached out to the Warren County Auditor’s Office to check on how much money the district was collecting for next year.

“So there’s something in the calculation that says, what are the advances at June 30 that are available to the school district?” Stacy said.

In 2023 when the state reached out, the school district had roughly $6.7 million in the Warren County Auditor’s Office. In 2024, when the state reached out, Warren County had about $746,000.

But that wasn’t the amount that Springboro ended up collecting for the schools, Stacy said. The amount collected for the school was closer to the previous $6.7 million collected. It just wasn’t collected and earmarked when the state reached out.

However, the change in how much Warren County collected may still have affected the Auditor of State’s opinion.

The delay in collection could have been later because tax bills were sent out later or something else happened, Stacy said.

The district has an A+ rating from S&P Global and considers it a stable outlook due to the district’s “growing property tax base and strengthened financial position,” according to the rating.

Warren County Auditor Matt Nolan said he does not like the FIH report, because it only shows a snapshot in time.

“If you think about it like your checking account, the day before and the day after you pay your credit card bill, your checking account might look very different,” he said.