The Fountain Hills Unified School District Governing Board has approved the annual financial report for FY 2015, a required report that contains budgeted and actual expenditures from the previous fiscal year.

Assistant Superintendent of Business Operations Dr. Robert Allen broke down this year’s financial report, explaining that it has been a lengthy process due to weeding through previous reports, stats, figures, etc.

“We’re still trying to clean some things up, but we’re getting there,” he said.

“There’s the approved budget, which is how the district plans to spend money in the coming year, then there’s the [annual financial report], which is how it was actually spent…

“If we all understand these things, we can make better decisions moving forward.”

The annual financial report includes everything from maintenance and operations expenditures to classroom site fund expenditures, capital expenditures, enrollment and expenses by student category.

According to Allen, there continues to be a drop in M&O expenditures due to a decrease in enrollment.

“That’s the same reason some federal grant funding went down,” Allen continued.

Bond expenditures increased this past year as bonds provided by the 2013 election have become active projects.

Allen explained that the AFP has been an evolving document over the past couple of months, with new figures and totals being calculated, even between when the board’s backup information was compiled and the new version provided during the Oct. 7 meeting.

One area of the AFR which received additional discussion was the area of “community school,” which refers to district activities such as summer school, as well as renting out facilities to outside entities.

“We began the school year with a deficit in that area, and that simply can’t happen,” Allen explained.

According to Superintendent Dr. Patrick Sweeney, the “community school” portion of the budget is just one of many which will be explored further in the coming months.

“We want to provide the best programs for our kids, but we can’t do that at a loss,” he said.

“We can’t operate that way.”

With the new administration established, board President Jill Reed said she was happy to see this type of thoroughness being applied to district spending, budgeting and reporting -- something she said is a long overdue process.

The AFR will be made available at the district website, fhusd.org, following submittal on Oct. 15.