THE DENVER PRESCHOOL PROGRAM Writes
New Pages on Best Practices
Thanks to Recommendations from City Audit
The Denver Preschool Program is committed to continuous improvement, which benefits both our preschool providers and our young learners. An important step in our continuous improvement path took place in 2019 when we had the opportunity to participate in an audit undertaken by the Audit Services Division of the City and County of Denver. The goal of the Audit Services Division is to strengthen governance, improve performance, enhance efficiency, increase revenues, reduce costs and risks, and improve the quality of services for Denver residents and businesses.
While meeting and exceeding the vast majority of the measures reviewed by the audit, the Denver Preschool Program also received constructive feedback from the Audit Services Division on best practices among nonprofit organizations that helped us improve how the staff and board of directors function – from formalizing already established operating reserve and investment policies to instituting new board policies.
The Denver Preschool Program’s reserves were a subject of discussion with the Audit Services Division, who questioned whether a program like ours should carry a reserve. With the economic instability brought on by COVID-19, the wisdom of earlier decisions has borne out. Denver Preschool Program is in a strong position today — despite the economic impacts of COVID-19 — to carry forth our mission because we are able to lean on our financial reserves. We are proud to be in a position to ensure that market volatility does not undermine our ability to serve the Denver community and fulfill future commitments.
We are grateful to have had the opportunity to work with the city auditor’s team. We value the lessons we took away from the experience, and we deeply appreciate the Auditor’s closing comments: “You certainly were a pleasure to work with, you participated and cooperated. I want to wish you continued success with the program. It’s an important program for Denver.”