Governor Joe Lombardo signed an executive order today that says Nevada’s 17 public school districts and its public charter school authority must submit audits that show any possible “financial deficiencies.” They have less than a month to do this. Monday afternoon, Lombardo signed Executive Order 2023-005, which told the Governor’s Finance Office’s Division of Internal Audits to work with each district’s superintendents to get external, third-party audits done by March 1.
A spokesman for the Clark County School District, Tod Story, said that the audit is already required, so the order is unnecessary. However, the district will follow it. “Since this is a protocol and report that we publish yearly and discuss publicly with our community, we are delighted to supply the material as asked by the governor’s office,” he said.
Following receipt of the audits, the Division of Internal Audits would prepare a report summarising its findings, identifying “any deficiencies and providing(s) suggestions to correct the identified deficiencies,” according to the press release. Lombardo will get a final report on December 29 for evaluation. Republican Assembly Republicans issued a joint statement on Twitter praising Lombardo’s initiative to increase “accountability.”
This, they said, “will put Nevada’s schools back on track, along with the historic boost in public school spending that the Governor announced in his State of the State address.” Furthermore, the action would “create an officer of the Inspector General with independent supervision authority for auditing all of Nevada’s school districts and charter schools,” according to Republican Assemblyman Rich DeLong. Approximately one month after Lombardo’s State of the State address, in which he identified accountability and openness as his top priorities for public education, the executive order was issued. In his budget plan, more than $725 million would go to the state’s “rainy day” fund for K–12 education.
No other information was given.
