BAINBRIDGE – The state’s comptroller has wrapped up final recommendations for the Bainbridge-Guilford School District following a three-month audit.
Following some administrative abuses in a handful of schools in other parts of the state, the New York State Office of the Comptroller has been auditing school districts.
“I’m very pleased with the evaluation. In the comptroller report, what you don’t see are all the things we did right,” said School Superintendent Karl Brown.
The audit focused on the district’s internal controls over payroll and information technology for the period of July 1, 2005 to Feb. 28, 2007.
The comptroller surveyed the school board’s ability to provided adequate oversight of the district’s treasurer’s duties and to ensure the position was accurately accounting for wages, benefits, leave-time and pay in accordance with approved employment contracts. The auditors also analyzed the school’s security of computerized data.
The report found some weaknesses in the district’s system and said that “the board did not adequately segregate payroll duties.”
“Since the treasurer creates employee records, inputs payroll data and prepares employees paychecks, there is a risk that inappropriate changes or payments could be made without detection,” the report stated.
No abuses were discovered, the state said; however the potential for abuse exists.
The report stated, “District officials should act to segregate the treasurer’s duties or provide for a compensating control procedure, to mitigate the risk of future errors or improper payments.”
“We are a small district and our office has three employees. It’s difficult not to have someone doing a little bit of everything. The main concern was that the person signing the checks isn’t the one handling them for the district, it was mostly a procedural recommendation and we’ve changed some of them already. We are also looking into hiring a part-time position to help address the issue,” said Brown.
A second recommendation by the state was that the district implement new procedures related to its computer systems controls, physical security and disaster recovery.
Brown said the school had already addressed the issue with temporary solutions. The district installed new locks on its server room doors and creates hard copy back ups of all its stored material. Those records are updated and stored at a local bank daily. Brown said it was a satisfactory arrangement until the school had an opportunity to discuss the issue and find a better solution.
The district was also being audited by the Internal Revenue Service and by its own independently hired self-auditing company.
“The other two audits have not released their results, but the district has been very thoroughly analyzed. I am happy with the results so far and if these are the largest complaints than I personal believe our district should be proud of its performance,” said Brown.