Background

The LaFayette Central School District (District) is located in the Towns of Fabius, LaFayette, Onondaga, and Tully, and lies within Onondaga 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 three schools in operation within the District, with approximately 910 students and 250 full and part-time employees. The District’s general fund expenditures for the 2005-06 fiscal year were about $17.7 million, funded primarily with State aid, sales tax, and real property taxes.

Objective

The objective of our audit was to examine the District’s internal controls over separation payments. Our audit addressed the following related question:

• Are internal controls over employee separation payments appropriately designed and operating effectively to adequately safeguard District assets?

Scope and Methodology

Our overall goal was to assess the adequacy of the internal controls put in place by officials to safeguard District assets. To accomplish this, we performed an initial assessment of the internal controls so that we could design our audit to focus on those areas most at risk. Our initial assessment included evaluations of the following areas: financial oversight, cash receipts and disbursements, purchasing, and payroll and personal services. Based on that evaluation, we determined that controls appeared to be adequate and limited risk existed in most of the financial areas we reviewed. We did determine that risk existed in the area of separation payments and, therefore, we examined internal controls over this area for the period July 1, 2005 to March 31, 2007.

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 C of this report.

Comments of District Officials

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 indicated they planned to initiate corrective action. Appendix B contains our comment on one issue raised in the District’s response.

The Board has the responsibility to initiate corrective action. Pursuant to Section 35 of the General Municipal Law, Section 2116-a (3)(c) of the Education Law and Section 170.12 of the Regulations of the Commissioner of Education, the Board must approve a corrective action plan that addresses the findings in this report, forward the plan to our office within 90 days, forward a copy of the plan to the Commissioner of Education, and make the plan available for public review in the District Clerk’s office. For guidance in preparing the plan of action, the Board should refer to applicable sections in the publication issued by the Office of the State Comptroller entitled Local Government Management Guide.