Background

The Fort Plain Central School District (District) is located in the Towns of Minden, Palatine, and Canajoharie in Montgomery County, the Town of Danube in Herkimer County, and the Town of Ephratah in Fulton County. The District is governed by the Board of Education (Board) which comprises seven elected members. The Board is responsible for the general management and control of the District’s financial and educational affairs. The Superintendent of Schools (Superintendent) is the chief executive officer of the District and is responsible, along with other administrative staff, for the day-to-day management of the District under the direction of the Board.

There are two schools in operation within the District, with approximately 965 students and 190 employees as of June 30, 2006. The District’s general fund expenditures for the 2005-06 fiscal year were approximately $15 million, funded primarily with State aid, real property taxes and grants.

Objective

The objective of our audit was to evaluate the internal controls over the District’s financial operations to ensure that District assets were properly safeguarded. Specifically, our audit addressed the following question:

• Are internal controls over payroll processing appropriately designed and operating effectively?

Scope and Methodology

Our overall goal was to assess the adequacy of the internal controls put in place by officials to safeguard the District’s assets. To accomplish this, we performed an initial assessment of the internal controls so that we could design our audit to focus on the areas most at risk. Therefore, we examined internal controls over payroll processing for the period July 1, 2004 to June 30, 2006.

We conducted our audit in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards (GAGAS). More information on such standards and the methodology used in performing this audit are included in Appendix B of this report.

Comments of District Officials and Corrective Action

The results of our audit and recommendations have been discussed with District officials and their comments, which appear in Appendix A, have been considered in preparing this report. District officials generally agreed with our recommendations and have initiated corrective action.