The Lindbergh School District received an unqualified opinion from Daniel Jones & Associates, Certified Public Accountants, on its audit for the fiscal year that ended June 30.

An unqualified opinion is the best opinion any organization can receive, and this is the 17th consecutive year that the school district has received an unqualified opinion.

Pat Lanane, assistant superintendent for finance and the district’s chief financial officer, said during a recent Board of Education meeting that while state statute requires school districts to have an independent audit performed once every two years, Lindbergh has an annual audit.

Lanane said, “This is the annual audit that Lindbergh chooses to do on an annual basis. State statute calls for one every other year. This would be the every-other-year required one … I would also remind the board that this is not my audit. This audit is done for the Board of Education. It’s your audit. You should feel free at any time — there’s phone numbers, I think, right on the front page of this — if you have a question about anything in here, as well as calling us you’re always welcome to do that, but if you should want to talk directly to one of the outside, independent CPA auditors, you should feel free to do that. That’s what their function is …”

The audit yielded no findings, restatements of accounts or management concerns.

Among other areas, the audit included a review of district instruction, guidance, food services, textbooks and transportation.

Jamie Bahr of Daniel Jones & Associates, who served as lead auditor, told board members, “… This year, we are happy to let you know that you have received an unqualified opinion, which is the best opinion that the school district can receive.”

Board President Mark Rudoff said to Bahr, “In your cover letter under ‘Difficulties Encountered in Performing the Audit,’ your statement — I know I’m getting a little ‘legalese’ here — but you ‘encountered no significant difficulties in dealing with management in performing and completing our audit’ …”

Bahr interjected, “Or insignificant.”

Rudoff continued, “… Knowing that Mr. Lanane is sitting to my left, did you en-counter any difficulty in conducting your audit?”

Bahr replied, “None at all.”

Board Vice President Ken Fey asked, “Did you have any recommendations on any kind of controls for management?”

Bahr said, “What we tested, we found no instances of non-compliance … and what we tested on, we did not find anything that we could recommend to make it better …”

Fey asked, “So you do not have a recommendation letter or anything like that?”

Bahr said, “No, because we did not have any instances of non-compliance.”

Fey said, “OK. Thank you.”

Rudoff asked, “Do you have any recommendations that were communicated to our CFO that are not part of this report?”

Bahr said, “No.”

Rudoff continued, “Do you have any findings or concerns that are not part of the report that you submitted?”

Bahr said, “No.”

Board member Janine Fabick asked, “Did you have any kind of — any immaterial past adjustments or anything of that nature that you came across?”

Bahr said, “It was clean.”

Fabick asked Bahr about the on-site audit work conducted by the firm.

“We did — I believe it was a day, a day-and-a-half of interim field work, which we come out a couple months early and usually get various items together,” Bahr said. “And then when we came back for end-of-field work, that was three days.”

Fabick asked, “And so that included your testing of the major federal programs? …”

Bahr said, “Yes.”

Fabick asked, “… Do they still have you rotate where you test all of the federal programs at some point?”

Bahr said, “We do rotate, yes.”

Fabick continued, “And so you did test some of the non-major federal programs?”

Bahr said, “Yes.”

Fabick said, “Wow. So you got a lot accomplished in a short time frame.”

Bahr said, “It helps to be very organized and like I said, we really appreciate how organized everything is when we come out here.”