Barton Community College’s Board of Trustees heard and approved an auditor’s report on Tuesday for the fiscal years that end June 30, 2024 and 2025. Danielle Hollingshead with Adams Brown told the trustees, “We are giving you an unmodified opinion, or a ‘clean’ opinion.”
The official document states:
“In our opinion, Barton County Community College complied, in all material respects, with the types of compliance requirements referred to above that could have a direct and material effect on each of its major federal programs for the year ended June 30, 2025.”
The report included a Statement of Net Position that shows the college’s total net position improved over the last year. Total assets in 2025 are $74.8 million, about $2.6 million more than in 2024. Total assets for the college’s Foundation grew from $13.9 million to nearly $15.9 million.
Overall credit-hour production increased this past year by 12.2%:
• Barton Online credit-hour production increased by 19.1%
• The Barton campus saw an increase of 3.05%
• Fort Riley experienced a decrease of 2.5%; however, Fort Leavenworth experienced an increase of approximately 22.3%
• Grandview Plaza’s increase was 2.8%
“Overall, these changes in credit-hour production and operations can be attributed to better recruitment and retention of students, the value of Barton’s educational offerings, enhanced dual credit offerings, changes in deployments and military training, and overall changes in our operations,” according to a statement in the report from Mark Dean, vice president of administration.
A significant deficiency
“We did not identify any deficiencies in internal control over compliance that we consider to be material weaknesses,” the report states. “However, as discussed below, we did identify a certain deficiency in internal control over compliance that we consider to be a significant deficiency.” This is less severe than a “material weakness in internal control over compliance” but important enough to merit attention.
The problem was identified in the handling of federal awards.
When a recipient of the Title IV grant or loan assistance withdraws from the college during a payment period, the institution must accurately determine the amount of Title IV aid earned by the student as of his or her withdrawal date. This means the correct calendar dates must be determined. Of the 37 students tested for the Title IV procedures, two had errors in their calculation. The instances were the result of human error. As a result, one student received an additional $29 that should have been returned to the Department of Education. In the second case, the school delivered to the student and parent an additional $4,705.
It was recommended that the college update its policies to ensure that future calculations are accurate.
Another weakness was reported concerning attendance taking when it comes to withdrawals. Six of the 60 students tested did not have their enrollment status change properly reported. This issue has been corrected.
Federal programs
Total new loans made to eligible students through the Federal Direct Student Loans program totaled nearly $2.7 million for the year ended June 30, 2025.
Other business
In addition to approving the audit report, the board approved adding Modern Campus software to improve enrollment, course catalog and course management. The five-year implementation and subscription cost is $248,911 and will be paid for using the Student Success funds awarded through the Kansas Board of Regents.
A motion was approved to pay the physical education renovation project payments as they are received. Board chairman Mike Johnson said this clarifies a motion from last December. He stressed that the $3 million project is still coming from private donations but allows for the timing of pledges that haven’t come in yet.
The following new personnel were approved:
• Peyton Besco, assistant wrestling coach
• Billy Mitchell, campus safety officer
• Jake Newman, instructional specialist (Adult Basic Education, General Educational Development), at the Ellsworth Correctional Facility.
The motion on paying for the PE project was described as a clerical detail that needed to be taken care of to be fully transparent.
The motion was to "Approve and pay the physical education building renovation project payments as they are received."
The necessity for this motion was to provide specific clarity concerning the need to pay the invoices as they are received. When the project was approved unanimously by the Board back in December of 2024, that original motion said "Approve the Administration to enter into a contract with Mammoth Sports Construction for a cost not to exceed Three Million Dollars for the Physical Education Building renovation to be paid for with private donor dollars."
A college spokesman noted, nothing has changed since that time in regard to the funding being from private donors. The timing of some of the private donor pledges is not matching up with the due dates on some of the invoices. So, it will be necessary to temporarily use Barton's unrestricted general fund dollars to pay some of the invoices that are currently due and then when the remaining donor pledges are received, those private funds will be backfilled into the general fund account. It is simply a timing issue. Since the original motion specifically mentioned using private dollars, some might perceive that wasn't the case if funds were being dispersed from a general fund account. This new motion clarifies that the invoices can be approved and paid when they are due and not delayed until all the private funds are received. Just a clerical detail we thought needed to be taken care of since we want to be fully transparent.
