Followup—Arizona school districts’ and charter schools’, and ADE’s discretionary, COVID-19 federal relief spending—in fiscal year 2022 and in total through June 30, 2022 (Originally issued January 1, 2023)

This special report provides summary information and 4 interactive dashboards with Arizona school districts’ and charter schools’ reported spending in fiscal year 2022 and through June 30, 2022, and planned spending of allocated/awarded COVID-19 federal relief monies, as required by Laws 2021, Ch. 408, §54.

This special report also provides Arizona Department of Education (ADE)-reported spending for fiscal year 2022 and through June 30, 2022, and planned future spending of the discretionary COVID-19 federal relief monies that it received, as required by the law. This information is included below the dashboards and “Report-wide footnotes” sections.

Our January 1, 2023, report included 3 findings and recommendations related to district and charter planned future relief monies spending, noncompliance with statutory reporting requirements, and district- and charter-reported information that appears inconsistent and potentially misreported. In July 2023, we issued a followup to our January 2023 report, describing districts’ and charters’ efforts to implement recommendations from the 3 findings in the "Summary” and “Findings, recommendations, and followup” expandable sections. Specifically, we followed up with districts and charters to obtain additional detail about their planned future relief spending and to provide an opportunity to correct noncompliance with reporting requirements. We also gathered audited fund balance information for all districts and charters to provide more complete and transparent financial information.  To provide accurate and complete financial reporting for decision-makers, stakeholders, and the public, we continued to follow up with the districts and charters that were cited for noncompliance and updated their information, as applicable, in November 2023. This final followup concludes our work on the districts’ and charters’ efforts to implement recommendations from our January 2023 report.

A link to the special report followup can be found under “Additional Links” on the right side of this page. The “Additional Documents” section includes a Summary of the special report followup; the November 2023 final data file, which includes data used in the dashboards as of our followup date; the July 2023 data file; and the January 2023 data file, which includes the data published in our January 1, 2023, report.