Audit Services in the Office of Financial Management provides technical assistance and oversight of financial and pupil membership audits, and serves as the audit liaison between the Michigan Office of the Auditor General, the Michigan Office of Financial Management's Office of Internal Audit Services, federal grantor agencies, and the program offices within the Michigan Department of Education.
State School Aid, estimated at $17 billion annually, is allocated to school districts in the form of general aid and categorical aid. The amount of general aid allocated to each district is based on the number of full-time equivalent pupils counted by the district on the count dates. Intermediate school districts audit these counts. Audit Services is responsible for providing guidance and overseeing the quality of these audits. Every public school district, including public school academies, must submit to the Department's Office of Financial Management a financial audit. Audit Services is responsible to review the audits to ensure that they are performed in accordance with Generally Accepted Auditing Standards (GAAS), Government Auditing Standards (GAS), and all findings, questioned costs and other audit issues are resolved in a timely manner.
The Department receives approximately $1.7 billion in federal funds annually. The majority of the funds are passed through to subrecipients. One of the prerequisites for the receipt of these funds is that subrecipients must submit annual single audits to the Department. The Uniform Grant Guidance requires that state departments monitor subrecipients to which it "passes through" federal funds. Audit Services reviews the audits to assure that the federal expenditures were audited, assure that the audits meet the federal requirements, follow up on audit findings, corrective actions and audit quality issues, perform quality control reviews of selected audit firms and take actions with auditors performing substandard work. The Department processes approximately 1,000 audits each year.
To contact audit services, email MDE-OFM@Michigan.gov or call (517) 241-2208.
Per MCL 388.1618(2) of The State School Aid Act, each local and intermediate school district and public school academy must make the audit of financial and pupil accounting records available through a link on its website homepage, or may make the information available through a link on its intermediate district's website homepage. Due to changes in the state of Michigan's data systems, the state can no longer continue to host district financial audits on the MDE website.
The State School Aid Act of 1979
