Education Stabilization Fund Audit report

This is an excerpt of pages 212 to 217 of the State Auditor's Financial Statements and Federal Single Audit Report (1393 pages!). The key redux is in the "Description of Conditon" paragraph here:

The Office did not perform the calculations required to monitor the level of effort requirements

for the ESF program during fiscal year 2023. After the year was over, the Office determined that

the fiscal year 2023 expenditures did not meet the level of effort requirement.

When compared to overall state spending, the average amount of state spending on elementary and

secondary education for fiscal years 2017, 2018 and 2019 totaled 49.35 percent of the state’s

budget. The state was required to spend at least this percentage toward education in fiscal year

2023. However, the state only expended 42.99 percent of total state spending on education,

meaning the level of effort requirement was not met by about 6.36 percent, or $2,103,004,922.

The SPS portion of that 2B is large enough to cover a significant chunk of the budget shortfall.