I sat down with the 2026-27 Guide for Annual Audits. Cover date July 1, 2026. That is the booklet CDE’s LEA annual audits page lists as the 2026-27 issue. I am not writing against a rumor about a later supplement.
The booklet is a sampling script. It tells the auditor which folder to open. It does not merge those folders because the kids were in the same cafeteria.
If your auditor is in the building this winter for 2025-26 records, the 2025-26 guide governs that engagement. Read the year on the PDF in your hand.
The first page already names P-2
In the abbreviations, the guide defines P2 as the second principal period of apportionment under Education Code 41601. Then Section A, Attendance starts by asking whether the P2 and Annual reports of attendance reconcile to supporting documents.
That is the regular register. Teacher origination. A test month. Absences that were not supposed to be in ADA. Attendance Recovery is not hiding inside Section A. Recovery has its own letter.
If fiscal moved a Recovery quotient onto PADC and the school-day register never heard about it, Section A and Section HZ will not tell the same story. I walked the arithmetic in How a Recovered Absence Becomes P-2 ADA. The hub for the statute is still Attendance Recovery in California.
Four sections people keep stuffing in one binder
I already wrote the ELO-P walkthrough as ELO-P Audit Checklist for 2026-27. This is the map around it.
What the 2026-27 guide actually samples
| Section | Runs when | The auditor is looking for |
|---|---|---|
| A. Attendance | The LEA reported ADA | P2 and Annual reports that reconcile to site summaries and teacher records. Absences not sitting in ADA. Audit guide, Section A |
| HZ. Attendance Recovery | The LEA reported ADA generated through Recovery | A separate Recovery register, whole days, the 10-day cap, minutes, certificated ratio, one day per calendar day. Section HZ |
| DZ. ELO-P | The LEA received Expanded Learning Opportunities Program funds | Offer, access, nine combined hours, 30 nonschool days, staff ratios, plan, vendors, fees. Education Code 46120 |
| U. ASES | The LEA ran After School Education and Safety | Pupils served against written records. That is not HZ, and it is not DZ. |
The PDF is the 2026-27 Guide for Annual Audits. Statute requires. The guide tells the auditor how to sample.
HZ does not open unless you reported Recovery ADA. That is the first line of Section HZ. If you ran afternoons and never claimed the days, HZ is not your problem. If you claimed the days, HZ is the whole problem.
DZ does not care whether Recovery ADA moved. It cares whether you offered ELO-P and whether the hours added to nine. CDE still directs that a pupil is in Recovery or in expanded learning in a given stretch, not both. Mixing those minute banks is how you write findings in two sections from one room.
The older general walkthrough, A Guide to Preparing for Funding Audits in Schools, stays live. It is not the 2026-27 sampling script.
What HZ actually asks, once you stop skimming
I read the Recovery procedures twice. They are not mysterious. They are picky.
For sampled pupils, Section HZ has the auditor get absence reports and Recovery attendance, then check:
- Classroom-based charter status, and not an exclusive partnership under Education Code 47612.1
- Not continually enrolled in independent study for longer than 15 days on the dates they sat in Recovery
- A separate Recovery register, or another mechanism that keeps Recovery ADA apart from other ADA
- Whole days only
- No more than 10 recovered days, or the absences that pupil accrued, whichever is fewer
- Minutes that meet Education Code 46211(e), including an IEP alternate if there is one, with teacher documentation when the hours were banked
- A certificated LEA employee, in the 10 to 1 or 20 to 1 ratio, with standards-aligned content
- One recovered day per calendar day, plus the five-day week cap for districts and county offices
That last cluster is why a real afternoon program can still fail HZ. The kids can be in the room. The ADA still has to be a recovered day Education Code 46211 would recognize.
CDE already told you the annual audit verifies subdivisions (d) through (g), with penalties under (j). The guide is the script for that sentence.
Three things I will not pretend the PDF said
I did not find a statewide dollar for a recovered ADA day. HZ tells the auditor to estimate the dollar value of inappropriately reported ADA by grade span. It does not publish a price list.
I did not find a LEAP-file test inside HZ or DZ. CALPADS Flash 305 still matters for certification. It is not the audit procedure.
I did not find permission to treat Saturday school as Recovery. Weekend makeup is still Education Code 37223. The guide’s Recovery section cites 46211. Keep those statutes in different folders.
What to do with the booklet this week
Download the 2026-27 PDF. Write the year on a folder. Put Section A, Section HZ, and Section DZ in three clips, even if the same site coordinator owns the afternoon.
If you claimed Recovery ADA, print HZ and sit it next to the assigned-absence register from the P-2 post. If you received ELO-P funds, use the DZ checklist instead of rereading DZ in my voice.
The five questions your attendance data should already answer are on the compliance-gap checklist.
Sources
Where Attendly fits
The five questions your attendance data should already answer
A short checklist for expanded learning and fiscal leaders before the next reporting window.
Get the checklist
