State Releases Hartford Public Schools Fiscal Years 2024 and 2025 Forensic Audit Report

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10/07/2026

State Releases Hartford Public Schools Fiscal Years 2024 and 2025 Forensic Audit Report

(HARTFORD, CT) - The Connecticut State Department of Education (CSDE) today released an independent forensic audit of Hartford Public Schools (HPS) conducted by CliftonLarsonAllen LLP (CLA). CLA provided a written report and presentation of its findings to the Connecticut State Board of Education at the board's regular meeting on October 7, 2026.

The forensic audit is the latest phase of CSDE's ongoing intervention in HPS. In June 2024, the State Board of Education authorized Education Commissioner Charlene M. Russell-Tucker to take necessary actions to ensure the stability of the district's fiscal operations. On April 17, 2026, the CSDE expanded that work by entering into an agreement with CLA to conduct a compilation of forecasted revenues and expenditures followed by a forensic audit of HPS's Fiscal Year (FY) 2024, FY 2025, and FY 2026 budgets.

According to CLA's report, "CLA performed extensive analyses using available financial records, system data, supporting documentation, and interviews, [but] was not able to complete a full forensic reconstruction of all financial activity occurring during FY2024 and FY2025. Significant turnover among District leadership and finance personnel, limitations in the availability and consistency of historical records, incomplete email productions, and other documentation gaps prevented CLA from fully validating certain historical transactions and budgetary decisions or definitively determining the precise causes and magnitude of certain financial variances and deficits."

Based on the procedures that CLA completed using the records and information available to it, CLA states in its report that the forensic audit "identified weaknesses in budgeting, financial reporting, documentation retention, governance, and oversight that reduced financial transparency and limited the ability of management and the Board of Education to fully evaluate the District's financial position and the factors contributing to recurring budget deficits."

CLA identified the following 14 key observations across budgeting and financial reporting, governance and oversight, and internal controls and monitoring:

• Budgeting and accounting practices did not consistently provide clear visibility into the causes and magnitude of budget shortfalls.
• Budget transfers and expenditure reclassifications were frequently used to address account-level deficits, reducing transparency regarding the underlying operational drivers of budget variances.
• Certain expenditures were recorded in accounts that did not accurately reflect the nature of the related costs.
• Public budget materials, MUNIS data, and other financial reports did not consistently present comparable information or clearly identify the expenditure accounts and operational factors contributing to reported deficits.
• These conditions limited the reliability of account-level budget-to-actual analyses and complicated efforts to determine the precise causes of the District's financial challenges.
• Opportunities exist to strengthen board and departmental oversight of budgeting and financial management activities.
• While Board members generally understood their responsibility for approving the annual budget and monitoring District finances, understanding of budget transfer requirements, finance committee responsibilities, and related financial policies was not consistent.
• Department leaders reported limited involvement in final budget decisions and limited access to current budget information.
• Financial reports provided to the board reflected revised budget amounts after transfers rather than clearly displaying performance against the originally approved budget.
• Opportunities exist to strengthen controls related to grants management, procurement documentation, and employee and vendor master data.
• Grant-funded programs were not always clearly distinguished from operating activities or formally reassessed when grant funding expired.
• Supporting procurement documentation was not always readily available at the transaction level.
• Duplicate contact information was identified within employee and vendor records, and matches were identified between active employees and vendors that received payments during the review period.
• While these matches do not, by themselves, indicate fraud or improper relationships, they warrant documented review to determine whether legitimate relationships existed, required disclosures were made, and applicable conflict-of-interest and procurement requirements were followed.

CLA also issued 33 recommendations to the district and eight additional recommendations for the HPS Board of Education. According to CLA, implementation of those recommendations would improve "transparency, accountability, and financial stewardship throughout the District."

The report notes that FY 2026 information was not sufficiently final to support definitive findings. CLA will begin its FY 2026 review following completion of the district's fiscal year-end closeout.

The CSDE remains committed to supporting the district's efforts to achieve stability in its fiscal operations.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

October 7, 2026

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