Since most Texas school districts receive substantial amounts of money from Federal grants, they must comply with the laws, regulations, grant provisions, and contracts related the programs under which they receive their Federal funds and they must conform to appropriate professional standards. These compliance requirements are recorded in publications of the Texas Education Agency, the Federal agencies providing the grants, the Office of Management and Budget, the Governmental Accountability Office, and the AICPA. In this course, our second one on compliance issues, we focus on Federal funding sources, including stimulus funds provided by the American Recovery Reinvestment Act of 2009. The objectives of this seminar are (1) to discuss some of these laws and provisions, (2) to provide business managers and independent auditors with documentation related to the legal requirements and provisions, and (3) to provide a checklist that will help users insure that they have considered significant compliance issues when they manage their districts, prepare for the annual fiscal and compliance audit, or conduct the audit.

To know the provisions of the most commonly encountered Federal (including Stimulus) Compliance requirements. These include:

• OMB provisions
• The ARRA Supplement of 2009
• Requirements applicable specifically to Texas schools through TEA
• Other requirements
• To know where to find the most current version of documents containing these requirements.

Who should attend?
Independent auditors, school business personnel, internal auditors, school financial personnel, and members of the school’s audit committee should attend this seminar.

Texas school districts must comply with many policies, contractual agreements or grants, ordinances, and laws and regulations promulgated by local authorities, the State legislature, the Texas Education Agency, federal laws and agency regulations, and professional standards.  These compliance requirements are recorded in local policy manuals, the Texas Education Code, the Texas Administrative Code, official publications of the Texas Education Agency, the Texas Government Code, other state provisions and laws, relevant contract and grant provisions, and Federal laws and regulations.  We have divided the compliance course into two segments – General and State, and Federal and Stimulus.  The objectives of this seminar relate to the general and State compliance issues.  They are (1) to discuss some of these laws and provisions, (2) to provide business managers and independent auditors with documentation related to the legal requirements and provisions, and (3) to provide a checklist that will help users insure that they have considered significant compliance issues when they manage their districts, prepare for the annual fiscal and compliance audit, or conduct the audit.

To know the provisions of many of the most commonly encountered general and State compliance requirements.  These include:

• Local policies
• General requirements applicable to all State and local governmental entities
• Requirements applicable specifically to Texas schools
• Other requirements

To know where to find the most current version of documents containing these requirements.

Who should attend?
Independent auditors, school business personnel, internal auditors, school financial personnel, and members of the school’s audit committee should attend this seminar.

• To understand how the terms "significant deficiencies", "material weaknesses", and "those charged with governance" affect the processes of communicating internal control deficiencies of which the auditor became aware during the audit to appropriate parties.
• To understand how the term "more than inconsequential" delimits the severity of the control deficiency.
• To examine the form, content, and timing of communications related to internal control matters identified during the audit.

Where do you start when you design internal controls for cities and counties?  How do you implement the controls you have designed and then how do you monitor them to ensure they are providing the controls you expected.  This course helps you answer these questions for your own governmental entity.  It follows the COSO (Committee of Sponsoring Organizations) guidelines providing design and monitoring tools for each of the five components.  In addition to the printed copy of the course materials which serve as the basis for classroom discussions, we will demonstrate software which will help you design and document the control structure that meets your needs.

When you have completed Internal Controls for Governmental Entities, you should be able to do the following:

• Describe your entity’s control environment and identify needed improvements
• Assess the risks related to achieving management’s objectives for each significant activity.
• Connect assessed risks with the control activities that help ensure that management’s directives are carried out.
• Note how information is captured and communicated among appropriate managers so they have sufficient detail in a timely manner to enable them to carry out their responsibilities efficiently and effectively.
• Identify key monitoring processes related to managers’ performance, the functioning of internal control systems and corroboration of the effectiveness of controls by external parties.

Who should take it?

If you are the principal financial or business officer, the head of accounting, the internal auditor, the independent auditor or a person charged with governance of an entity that does not have a sound written internal control structure, you belong in this course.

Where do you start when you design internal controls for schools? How do you implement the controls you have designed and then how do you monitor them to ensure they are providing the controls you expected. This course helps you answer these questions for your own school district. It follows the COSO (Committee of Sponsoring Organizations) guidelines providing design and monitoring tools for each of the five components.
In addition to the printed copy of the course materials which serve as the basis for classroom discussions, we will demonstrate software which will help you design and document the control structure that meets your needs.

When you have completed Internal Controls for Schools, you should be able to do the following:

1. Describe your entity’s control environment and identify needed improvements
2. Assess the risks related to achieving management’s objectives for each significant activity.
3. Connect assessed risks with the control activities that help ensure that management’s directives are carried out.
4. Note how information is captured and communicated among appropriate managers so they have sufficient detail in a timely manner to enable them to carry out their responsibilities efficiently and effectively
5. Identify key monitoring processes related to managers’ performance, the functioning of internal control systems, and corroboration of the effectiveness of controls by external parties.

Who should take it
If you are the principal financial or business officer, the head of accounting, the internal auditor, the independent auditor or a person charged with governance of an entity that does not have a sound written internal control structure, you belong in this course.

If you or some of your staff have no training or experience in preparing or auditing a school district’s annual report, our Introduction to Texas Schools Accounting and Auditing course will give you an excellent foundation for understanding the accounting principles and auditing standards that TEA requires Texas Schools to apply. It will help you understand new provisions issued by TEA and discussed in our Update course.

When you have completed Introduction to Texas Schools Accounting and Auditing, you should be able to do the following:

• Identify the source of legal requirements and authoritative accounting and auditing standards which apply to Texas Schools.
• Describe the provisions of GASB's Codification of Governmental Accounting and Financial Reporting Standards Section 1100, Summary Statement of Principles including the content and format of the Governmental Reporting Model (GASB #34 as amended by recent pronouncements)
• Overview TEA's Financial Accountability System Resource Guide and the account coding system
• Describe Yellow Book and Single Audit processes (OMB circular A-133) applied to most Texas schools.
• Discuss the electronic reports required by TEA.
• Study other items as necessary.

Who should take it
If you have limited training or experience in accounting for Texas schools, but are responsible for performing accounting functions, you belong in this course.

This course provides a summary of the features of AUDIT-CITY from installation to the completion of the report. Emphasis is placed on the flow of data from the entity's ASCII file containing their accounting data through the trial balance to the data required for the preparation of the annual report. Detailed procedures will be presented in related courses.

• To review installation requirements including the special instructions for Vista and Windows 7.
• To review how to read and/or create ASCII files obtained from the district.
• To show how the ASCII file is imported into the Trial Balance.
• To demonstrate the flow of data from the Trial Balance in the data files created in the Report Generator.
• To explain the data file structure in the Report Generator and relate it to the preparation of the Financial Report.
• To review the check list of items that must "tie out" between exhibits.

To accomplish our objectives we will use real data from an example city. The instructor will carefully step through the demonstration using AUDIT-CITY. Use of a computer is not required.

This course provides a summary of the features of AUDIT-L.E.A. from installation to the completion of the report. Emphasis is placed on the flow of data from the school's ASCII file containing their accounting data through the trial balance to the data required for the preparation of the annual report. Detailed procedures will be presented in related courses.

• To review installation requirements including the special instructions for Vista and Windows 7.
• To review how to read and/or create ASCII files obtained from the district.
• To show how the ASCII file is imported into the Trial Balance.
• To demonstrate the flow of data from the Trial Balance in the data files created in the Report Generator.
• To explain the data file structure in the Report Generator and relate it to the preparation of the Financial Report.
• To review the check list of items that must "tie out" between exhibits.

To accomplish our objectives we will use real data from a Texas school. The instructor will carefully step through the demonstration using AUDIT-L.E.A. Use of a computer is not required.

Policy-setting Boards (City Councils, County Commissioners, Boards of School Trustees, etc.) bear many responsibilities related to financial reporting and the independent audit. This seminar discusses five crucial issues policy-setting bodies should understand.

• Engaging the independent auditor.
• Avoiding conflicts of interest and insuring the auditors' independence.
• Understanding and supporting procedures that enhance internal controls over financial reporting and compliance with laws, regulations and contractual agreements.
• Understanding the scope of financial reporting.
• Understanding the governmental entity's reporting capabilities.

This course introduces you to accounting for state and local governmental entities and public school systems. It presents the big picture. That is, it overviews governmental accounting from setting up the system through capturing data and processing it to reporting to various users of governmental financial information. It is based on the most current version of section 1100, Summary Statement of principles of the Governmental Accounting Standards Board's Codification of Governmental Accounting and Financial Reporting Standards.

When you have completed Principles of Governmental Accounting, you should be able to do the following:

• Describe the accounting and reporting capabilities that a governmental accounting system must have (complying with GAAP and legal requirements).
• Explain fund accounting systems, including the function of governmental, proprietary, and fiduciary fund types in general and the function of each fund in any of those fund types.
• Explain when a government must use modified accrual accounting (fiscal accountability) and when it must use accrual accounting (operational accountability).
• Tell how to account for capital assets and long-term liabilities in both fiscal and operational accountability environments.
• Describe budgeting and explain where and why budgetary control is required and how it is reported.
• Explain when a transaction is classified as a transfer, revenue, expenditure, and expense. Describe what elements must be captured by the account code for each of these classifications.

• To understand the expanded definition of the term reasonable assurance.
• To understand the impact of expanding the scope of "internal control" to "the entity and its environment, including its internal control" and replacing the term "evidential matter" with "audit evidence" in the revised standards of field work.
• To understand the new concepts of audit evidence and relevant assertions and the qualitative aspects the auditor considers in determining the sufficiency and appropriateness of audit evidence.
• To consider the combination of audit risk and materiality when performing an audit of financial statements.
• To discuss the elements of planning - including, among other activities, establishing an understanding with the client and developing an overall audit strategy.
• To consider the integrated processes of understanding the entity and its environment, assessing the risks of material misstatement, performing audit procedures in response to the assessed risks, and evaluating the audit evidence obtained.
• To study the processes of audit sampling in relation to the other new standards.

This seminar covers several changes in accounting, financial reporting, and auditing for Texas schools that affect financial statements for FY 2010 and FY 2011.  The changes are the result of actions of the 81st Texas Legislature, increased funding and related reporting in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), GASB pronouncements, new auditing standards, etc.  Some of these changes must be considered for this year’s financial statements; others must be implemented this year because of their impact on next year’s financial statements.

As always, the course handout materials include official documents and useful tools as well as the PowerPoint slides.

After completing the course, participants should be able to:

• Explain the new provisions in the FASRG and explain how to implement and/or comply with them
• Identify and conform to new GASB pronouncements
• Explain the contents of the annual financial and compliance report of Texas school districts
• Explain the responsibilities of various parties preparing the annual financial report and implementing and monitoring internal control systems
• Apply the new AICPA auditing standards
• Comply with Government Auditing Standards as issued by the Government Accountability Office
• Apply requirements related to auditing compliance and internal control requirements of OMB Circular A-133 and Addendum #1
• Apply compliance auditing requirements of Title I, Part A; State Compensatory Education, and Special Education

Who should attend?
Independent auditors, school business personnel, internal auditors, school financial personnel, and members of the school’s audit committee should attend this seminar.

The financial statements of any entity are its management’s responsibility – regardless of who prepares them. Therefore, at least one person in management should know how its accounting information has been accumulated and how the statements are extracted from appropriate data bases. That person must have suitable skill, knowledge and/or experience to monitor the preparation of the financial statements and take responsibility for them. The objective of this course is to help local governmental entities meet this requirement.

The handout material contains an extensive checklist to assist in assessing the completeness and accuracy of the accounting and financial statement preparation.

When you have completed The City's Responsibility for Preparing the Annual Financial Report, you should be able to do the following:

• Describe the city’s account coding structure in detail
• Analyze account data extracted through queries of the relevant data bases
• Explain fund level financial statements: basic, combining, and individual funds
• Define accountability in governmental accounting
• Overview typical year-end adjustments
• Explain error detection and validation of data quality
• Prepare fund level financial statements
• Prepare government-wide financial statements

Who should attend?
 Anyone who has responsibility for preparing the city’s financial statements belongs in this course.

The financial statements of any entity are its management’s responsibility – regardless of who prepares them. Therefore, at least one person in management should know how its accounting information has been accumulated and how the statements are extracted from appropriate data bases. That person must have suitable skill, knowledge and/or experience to monitor the preparation of the financial statements and take responsibility for them. The objective of this course is to help Texas school districts meet this requirement. The handout material contains an extensive checklist to assist in assessing the completeness and accuracy of the accounting and financial statement preparation.

When you have completed The District's Responsibility for Preparing the Annual Financial Report, you should be able to do the following:

• Describe the district’s account coding structure in detail
• Analyze account data extracted through queries of the relevant data bases
• Explain fund level financial statements: basic, combining, and individual funds
• Define accountability in governmental accounting
• Overview typical year-end adjustments
• Explain error detection and validation of data quality
• Prepare fund level financial statements
• Prepare government-wide financial statements

Who should attend?
Anyone who has responsibility for preparing the district’s financial statements belongs in this course.

This course presents a detailed description and demonstration of the many tools in AUDIT-CITY for analyzing the local government's trial balance data - current and prior years and budget and actual. The emphasis is on the Trial Balance program in AUDIT-CITY. Using real city data, the routines available are used to filter, query, prepare detailed and summarized reports, run compliance tests and prepare lead sheets.

• To understand methods of analyzing the imported data for accuracy using such tools as the Status of Funds by fund and fund type. Use these tools to check for consistency with prior year reported fund balance.
• To compare current and prior year data for percentage and/or value changes at the account level or at a summarized level.
• To compare budgeted and actual data for percentage and/or value changes with emphasis on unfavorable variances.
• To make and document necessary adjustments to the trial balance.
• To explain the requirements embodied in the planning materiality report.
• To use the various query routines to extract and export data for additional analysis.
• To prepare various lead sheet reports including those based on the reporting codes used in the Report Generator of AUDIT-CITY.
• To introduce new features included in the Trial Balance program in AUDIT-CITY.

To accomplish our objectives we will use real data from an example city. The instructor will carefully step through the demonstration using AUDIT-CITY. There will be ample opportunity for specific questions regarding the tools available in AUDIT-CITY. Use of a computer is not required.

This course provides an in depth discussion of the typical adjustments necessary to convert the modified accrual governmental fund level data to the accrual based government wide data. The reporting codes assigned in AUDIT-CITY and specified by EdMIS are used in this course. The focus of this course is to show how the documentation for most of the required adjustments can be obtained from the Trial Balance data in AUDIT-CITY. The Conversion and Consolidating system provided in AUDIT-CITY provides excellent documentation and explanation of the adjustments.

• To understand the accounting theory incorporated in the conversion and consolidating system in AUDIT-CITY.
• To discuss in detail the required accounting and reporting codes, and the typical adjustments necessary, such as:
• Consolidating internal service fund data
• Consolidating long term debt and capital items
• Adjusting revenues to reflect revenues earned
• Reclassification entries involved with current year activities with respect to debt and capital items
• Eliminating interfund transactions
• Reclassification of other sources and uses
• Reclassification of fund balance items
• To review the various methods and worksheets provided to extract data from Trial Balance as necessary to document the items included in the adjustments.
• To review the method used to allocate program revenues by function.
• To show the calculation of the general revenues.
• To complete the two Government Wide exhibits - The Government Wide Statement of Net Assets and the Government Wide Statement of Activities.

To accomplish our objectives we will use real data from an example city. The instructor will carefully step through the demonstration using AUDIT-CITY. There will be ample opportunity for specific questions regarding the tools available in AUDIT-CITY. Use of a computer is not required.

This course provides a detailed demonstration of how the data collected in the various data files in the Report Generator is collected as needed to print the required exhibits in the annual financial report. Data is derived from the trial balance, hand entered or the result of the adjustments in the fund to government wide conversion process. The exhibits are printed drawing from all relevant data files. This course will focus on the printing and editing of the final report.

• To review the data files in which data must be hand-entered.
• To discuss how the exhibits can be printed or previewed.
• To show how the various worksheets are prepared to document the adjustments and prepare the government wide statements.
• To show which errors are tested in the CHECKS menu option.
• To describe in detail the routines for editing the row descriptions, the column headings, the fiscal year, and/or the exhibit title and number.
• To review how the PDF file is created.
• To describe the documents section of the Report Generator and how it can be used to prepare auditor's opinions, MD and A, notes and other documents required in the report.
• To discuss how documents prepared in Microsoft Word© can be used to prepare PDF files and then combined with the PDF file of the exhibits created in AUDIT-CITY.

To accomplish our objectives we will use real data from an example city. The instructor will carefully step through the demonstration using AUDIT-CITY. There will be ample opportunity for specific questions regarding the tools available in AUDIT-CITY. Use of a computer is not required.

This course presents a detailed description and demonstration of the many tools in AUDIT-L.E.A. for analyzing school district data - current and prior years and budget and actual. The emphasis is on the Trial Balance program in AUDIT-L.E.A. With real Texas school data, the routines available are used to filter, query, prepare detailed and summarized reports, run compliance tests and prepare lead sheets.

• To understand methods of analyzing the imported data for accuracy using such tools as the Status of Funds by fund and fund type. Use these tools to check for consistency with prior year reported fund balance.
• To compare current and prior year data for percentage and/or value changes at the account level or at a summarized level.
• To compare budgeted and actual data for percentage and/or value changes with emphasis on unfavorable variances.
• To make and document necessary adjustments to the trial balance.
• To explain the requirements embodied in the planning materiality report.
• To use the various query routines to extract and export data for additional analysis.
• To prepare various lead sheet reports including those based on the reporting codes required by the Texas Education Agency.
• To demonstrate the tests for compliance with state mandated programs and federal grants.
• To create a PEIMS data file and run the PEIMS edit checks to check for coding errors contained in the district's data.
• To analyze proposed budget data for coding errors and for budgeted compliance.
• To introduce new features included in the Trial Balance program in AUDIT-L.E.A..

To accomplish our objectives we will use real data from a Texas school. The instructor will carefully step through the demonstration using AUDIT-L.E.A. There will be ample opportunity for specific questions regarding the tools available in AUDIT-L.E.A. Use of a computer is not required.

This course provides an in depth discussion of the typical adjustments necessary to convert the modified accrual governmental fund level data to the accrual based government wide data. The reporting codes required by the Texas Education Agency are used in this course and in AUDIT-L.E.A. for Texas Schools. The focus of this course is to show how the documentation for most of the required adjustments can be obtained from the Trial Balance data in AUDIT-L.E.A. The Conversion and Consolidating System provided in AUDIT-L.E.A. provides excellent documentation and explanation of the adjustments.

• To understand the accounting theory incorporated in the conversion and consolidating system in AUDIT-L.E.A.
• To discuss in detail the required accounting and reporting codes, and the typical adjustments necessary, such as:
• Consolidating internal service fund data
• Consolidating long term debt and capital items
• Adjusting revenues to reflect revenues earned
• Reclassification entries involved with current year activities with respect to debt and capital items
• Eliminating interfund transactions
• Reclassification of other sources and uses
• Reclassification of fund balance items
• To review the various methods and worksheets provided to extract data from Trial Balance as necessary to document the items included in the adjustments.
• To review the method used to allocate program revenues by function.
• To show the calculation of the general revenues.
• To complete the two Government Wide exhibits - The Government Wide Statement of Net Assets and the Government Wide Statement of Activities.

To accomplish our objectives we will use real data from a Texas school. The instructor will carefully step through the demonstration using AUDIT-L.E.A. There will be ample opportunity for specific questions regarding the tools available in AUDIT-L.E.A. Use of a computer is not required.

This course provides a detailed demonstration of how the data collected in the various data files in the Report Generator are collected as need to print the required exhibits in the annual financial report. Data are imported from the tiral balance, hand entered or saved as a result of the fund to government wide adjustments. The exhibits are printed drawing from all relavant data files. This course will focus on the printing and editing of the final report.

• To review the data files in which data must be hand-entered.
• To discuss how the exhibits can be printed or previewed.
• To show how the various worksheets are prepared to document the adjustments and prepare the government wide statements.
• To show which errors are tested in the CHECKS menu option.
• To describe in detail the routines for editing the row descriptions, the column headings, the fiscal year, and/or the exhibit title and number.
• To understand the relationship between the exhibits and the TEA AUDIT FEED file and to review how this file is created.
• To review how the PDF file is created.
• To describe the documents section of the Report Generator and how it can be used to prepare auditor's opinions, MD and A, notes and other documents required in the report.
• To discuss how documents prepared in Microsoft Word© can be used to prepare PDF files and then combined with the PDF file of the exhibits created in AUDIT-L.E.A..

To accomplish our objectives we will use real data from a Texas school. The instructor will carefully step through the demonstration using AUDIT-L.E.A. There will be ample opportunity for specific questions regarding the tools available in AUDIT-L.E.A. Use of a computer is not required.

• To determine when generally accepted government auditing standards (GAGAS) apply and how the standards affect the auditor's ethical responsibilities.
• To understand the general standards of GAGAS, emphasizing independence and competence of the auditee.
• To know what field work and reporting standards are added to the AICPA's generally accepted auditing standards by GAGAS.
• To understand the general, field work, and reporting standards of attestation engagements and performance audits.

• To understand the purposes and procedures of OMB Circular A-133 and the respective responsibilities of auditees, Federal agencies and pass-through entities, and auditors.
• To learn how to complete and file the data collection form.
• To learn how to find or create compliance requirement checklists and internal controls for Federally funded programs.

• To determine how to coordinate audit procedures for audits of financial statements, Yellow Book audits, and Single Audit Act audits.