Financial Incidents Widespread in K12 School Districts, New Research Reveals

99 percent of surveyed district finance leaders managed at least one incident in the past three years as parent concerns grow, according to research commissioned by KEV Group

WASHINGTON, July 28, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- 99% of surveyed school district finance leaders acknowledged managing at least one financial incident tied to locally generated school funds in the past three years, including internal investigations, parent complaints, missing records, or legal claims.

The findings are included in "Student Activity Funds: Fraud Risk and Perceptions", a survey commissioned by KEV Group and run by Golfdale Consulting which sought the perspective of district CFOs and finance managers (89), school teachers and administrators (275), and parents and guardians (418), on the systems in place to manage locally-generated funds.

"This report is coming out at exactly the right moment. Districts are under growing budget pressure to account for every dollar they touch," said Marguerite Roza, Director of the Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University who authored the report's foreword. "Leaders need tools to show the world they've got this under control."

The report builds on KEV Group's K-12 Fraud Report, released earlier this year, which analyzed incident data from districts across the country to map where and how school-level fraud occurs. This new study goes a step further, asking the people closest to that money how they experience the risk.

Key findings from the report include:

• Districts experience crosscutting concerns, regardless of size. The findings hold regardless of district size. Real-time visibility into student balances remains stuck at 29% whether a district has 5 schools or 60, and nearly every US district, large or small, has faced a funds-related incident in the past three years.
• Cash is still how K-12 schools move money, even in 2026. 84% of district finance managers, 69% of teachers and administrators, and 60% of parents report using cash as a primary payment method. Nearly half of all districts (46%) use some combination of cash, checks, and personal payment apps like Venmo or Zelle, all at once.
• District leaders are confident and concerned at the same time. 82% of CFOs say their district's current approach protects both the money and the people handling it. But six in ten of those same CFOs rate their district's financial risk exposure as moderate or higher.
• Districts believe the system is unified. Families don't experience it that way. 94% of district leaders say they have a single, unified view of all payments tied to student fees. Only 55% of parents agree one exists, and school staff land in between at 72%.
• Confidence that funds reach their intended purpose erodes with proximity to the money. Only 28% of parents say they're "very confident" school funds are used as intended; CFOs are only somewhat more confident, at 37%.

"If every school in the district is running its own version of cash, checks, and a different online system, you don't really know what's happening until something goes wrong," said Stephen Frost, Former District Business Administrator at Tenafly Public Schools. "The districts handling this well aren't working harder — they've moved to one system that shows every dollar, at every school, in real time."

The full report can be found HERE.

About KEV Group

KEV Group is trusted by 1 in 4 schools across North America to provide real-time visibility and accountability for school-generated funds by unifying accounting, payments, and reporting in one secure, purpose-built platform. Managing nearly $8 billion in student activity fees annually, KEV helps districts reduce fraud risk, ensure compliance, and focus on what matters most — supporting student learning and achievement.

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SOURCE KEV Group