Ovid-Elsie finance committee takes up 2025-26 audit Oct. 14 in Elsie

The Ovid-Elsie Area Schools board's finance committee meets at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 14, with one item on it: the 2025-2026 financial audit. The meeting is at the district Administration Office, 8989 E. Colony Road in Elsie, according to the public notice signed by board secretary Becky Williams.

An annual audit is the outside accounting firm's review of how a district's money came in and went out over the fiscal year, and of how much is left in the fund balance. For a district that is preparing a bond case, that fund balance number is the one to watch — it is part of what rating agencies and lenders look at, and it is the first hard figure the public gets about the year just closed.

Ovid-Elsie has been building toward a bond proposal for months. The Current reported in August that the board voted 4-3 on July 20 to apply to the state's School Bond Qualification and Loan Program, and that its facilities committee spent August interviewing architects — GMB and Kingscott — and construction management firms, Clark and Christman, over sessions that ran nearly three hours. The board also weighed enrollment projections and a possible restructuring concept at an Aug. 5 work session.

The notice does not say which firm performed the audit, what the audit found, or whether the full board will be asked to accept it at a later regular meeting. Committee notices from this district routinely list only a purpose line.

The notice also says the district will make reasonable accommodations for a disabled person to participate in the meeting, on request to the superintendent. Board minutes are kept at the Administration Office, and the board's principal office line is 989-834-2271.

What happens next: the committee meets Wednesday evening. An audit presented to a committee normally comes back to the full board for acceptance, and the audited financial statements themselves — fund balance, revenue, spending — are the document this desk will be asking for.