DIXFIELD — Regional School Unit 56 finances for its first year ending in June 2018 were “excellent,” an audit company representative told the board of directors Tuesday.

“By the sounds of this report it sounds like we did quite well,” Director Bruce Ross of Dixfield said.

“Financially you guys are in great shape,” Casey Leonard, the audit representative, responded.

Leonard told the board expenditures were $1.26 million under budget and total revenue was $106,000 over budget. He said administrators were “conservative” in the way they budgeted.

The two single largest revenue sources were assessments from Canton, Carthage, Dixfield and Peru. and intergovernmental revenues, which “primarily represent state education subsidies,” Leonard said.

According to the auditor’s report, in 2018 the district received and spent $861,216 in federal grants, including almost $585,000 from the Department of Education for Title IA, a program for disadvantaged students, and the Department of Education Special Education program for students with disabilities.

Other major federal awards and expenditures were from the Department of Homeland Security and from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for the national school lunch program, the report stated.

mhutchinson@sunmediagroup.net