By Steven Stilt
During its meeting Monday night, the Kaskaskia College Board of Trustees received positive news about the recently-completed financial statement audit covering the fiscal year that ended last June 30th.
Trustees approved the audit conducted by the firm CliftonLarsenAllen. Chris Suda, from CliftonLarsenAllen, provided an overview of the audit, reporting that there were three deficiencies found but the college has a corrective plan to address those issues, none of which rose to the level of being considered material weaknesses.
Overall, Suda says, the KC audit resulted in what is known as an “unmodified opinion,” which is the cleanest opinion available under their auditing standards.
College President George Evans says the unmodified opinion rating is a testament to the work done by KC’s staff.
“Any time you get an unmodified opinion as an audit with an institution of this size, with close to a $50 million a year budget, that makes me feel very confident in the ability of our folks, and it also reinforces the transparency that we have as an institution.”
The board also approved a resolution to set key dates for the Fiscal Year 2026 budget, which runs from July 1st, 2025, through June 30th, 2026. The resolution includes the setting of a public hearing on the tentative budget for 6 p.m. September 22nd, 2025, prior to the regular board meeting at the Crisp Center in Centralia, and states that the tentative budget must be available for public viewing between at least August 21st and September 20th of this year.
Board members also approved new contracts for the school’s vice presidents. Two-year agreements were approved for Vice President of Instructional Services Julie Obermark, Vice President of Institutional Support and Technology George Kriss, VP of Administrative Services Sara Hanks and VP of Student Services Amy Zanton.
Evans says the four vice presidents are not only highly capable, but also strongly devoted to KC and its mission.
“Most importantly is just their passion for KC. As I mentioned before, I think they could go anywhere they want to with the resumes that they have, but they choose to stay here because they love what they do, and I would not want to be in the trenches with anybody else other than those four VPs.”
Trustees approved a number of personnel-related actions on Monday, including a restructure of the public safety department. Under the restructuring, Brian Atchison will serve as both KC’s assistant police chief and assistant director of public safety starting July 1st.
The board also accepted the retirement of criminal justice professor Kenneth Ingersoll and mathematics professor Jodi Palm, effective in August 2026, and the retirement of dental assisting professor Lori Schmidt, effective in May 2026.