Budgeting & Financial Services
Led by a CPA licensed in Ohio with 25+ years of school district audit experience.
Construction budgets go wrong in predictable places: an estimate that never got tested against the drawings, a contingency spent by month four, a closeout nobody reconciled. We know where to look because we have been the ones auditing districts after the fact.
Government accounting, not commercial accounting
Our people are trained in government accounting, which is a different discipline from commercial accounting and the one your district actually operates under. That means fund accounting, Uniform Guidance, and the reporting the Auditor of State expects, applied to a construction budget rather than a general ledger.
Audit services
Financial Audits
An independent examination of the district’s financial statements, so the numbers the board reports are numbers somebody outside the district has tested.
Compliance Audits
Confirms the district is following the rules it is bound by, from state law down to its own board policy, before somebody else checks.
Single Audits
The federal compliance audit a district triggers by spending federal award money above the threshold. We prepare districts for it and we have performed them.
GAAP Conversion Assistance
Moving your statements onto the GAAP basis when a bond issue, a grant or a lender requires it.
Planning and controls
Budget Analysis
A line by line read of where the money is committed and where it is only assumed, on one project or across the district.
Internal Control Systems
The checks that make it hard for money to go missing and straightforward to prove it did not.
Financial Forecasts
Five year projections built from your own history, so a board can see what a capital decision does to the years after it.
Policy & Procedure Consultations
Writing and updating the financial policies your board adopts and your auditor tests, so the answer exists before the question is asked.
Records Retention
Keeping the documents that prove decisions were made properly, for as long as Ohio requires and long enough to answer a question years later.
Grant Administration
Managing award money end to end: application, tracking, spend-down, and the reporting that keeps the award compliant.
The budget is the plan
A construction budget is not a record-keeping exercise. It is the earliest place a project tells you the truth about whether the scope and the money agree. We build it, we test it against the drawings at every design milestone, and we watch it every month, so a shortfall shows up while there is still time to decide something about it rather than at closeout when there is not.
Want a second set of eyes on a project budget?
We will tell you what we see, whether or not you hire us for the rest.
MCS & Associates, Ltd. is a full-service construction and project management firm representing Ohio public owners. Based in Chillicothe, built on 30+ years in Ohio public service.