Historically, little attention has been given to accounting for activity funds in school districts. The nature of activity funds, however, makes them especially vulnerable to error, misuse, and fraud. In addition, activity funds often total to large sums of money, especially when capturing the amounts that flow through an educational organization in the form of school board funds, student-generated funds, receipts and disbursements related to athletics, and the myriad cocurricular and extracurricular events sponsored by school districts today. This chapter recommends policies and procedures6 for improving controls over these funds and promotes capturing all student activity-related monies in the district's financial records. Please note, however, that the guidelines presented are minimum controls that local school districts may expand on. In addition, since these guidelines are not generally mandated in any jurisdiction, the controls imposed in a particular state may be greater or lesser than those that are suggested here.7
This chapter provides a total systems view that
Recommended policies and procedures based on current best practices for operating activity funds are also provided.