We Make a Positive Difference
We help government work better by analyzing governmental operations and recommending improvements. Our fiscal year 2025 results:
* reports include audits, reviews, investigations, alerts, and followups.
What's New
This is an analysis of Arizona school district financial risk using the most current data available for 10 financial risk measures. We monitor each district’s overall financial risk of not...
District’s student assessment scores far exceeded peer and State averages, but the District lacked some internal controls related to cash handling and purchasing, and did not comply with IT security...
Authority distributed revenues consistent with statutory requirements and its revenues have increased since the COVID-19 pandemic, but did not consistently oversee facility manager or comply with all State conflict-of-interest laws...
Featured Reports
COVID-19 Spending Reports
Followup—Arizona school districts’ and charter schools’, and ADE’s discretionary, COVID-19 federal relief spending—through June 30, 2022...
Arizona Auditor General Special COVID-19 Funding Report, November 2022...
School District Financial Risk Analysis
As of January 2026, 9 of 207 analyzed Arizona school districts are at the highest financial risk, and 9 are approaching the highest-risk category. This represents an increase from last year’s report when our analysis identified 2 highest-risk school districts and 7 approaching the highest-risk category.
School District Spending Report
In FY 2024, dollars spent on instruction and total per student spending increased from the prior year, but the State-wide instructional spending percentage (ISP) decreased by 0.8 percentage points to 52.6%. For the second consecutive year, this is the lowest ISP since we began monitoring it in FY 2001. The State’s average teacher salary increased to $65,113—a 34.6% increase since FY 2017. Additionally, we report trends in the number of students enrolled in districts, which affects their available funding.