The Mamaroneck Union Free School District (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 six schools in operation within the District, with approximately 4,900 students attending these schools. The District has a workforce of approximately 1,000 employees. The District’s budgeted expenditures for the 2005-06 fiscal year were $96,302,000, funded primarily with real property taxes and State aid.

Scope and Objective

The objective of our audit was to examine the District’s control environment and internal controls over contract authorization and travel expenses of the former Assistant Superintendent of Operations for the period July 1, 2004 to May 31, 2006. For personal service contracts for network administration and travel reimbursement to the former Assistant Superintendent of Operations, we reviewed documents from December 1998 through June 2006.  Our audit addressed the following related questions:

• Were the personal service contracts with the District’s former Network Administrator properly authorized by the Board, and in compliance with the District's purchasing policy?

• Were specific travel expenses for the former Assistant Superintendent of Operations properly authorized and audited?  

Audit Results

Personal service contracts with the former Network Administrator were not properly authorized or in compliance with the purchasing policy.  In addition, travel expenses for the former Assistant Superintendent of Operations were not properly authorized or audited.

The Board did not exercise proper oversight over contractual payments for remote network administration services, totaling $685,000.  The payments pertained to nine consecutive contracts running from January 1999 through June 2006, signed by various administrative personnel.  The former Assistant Superintendent of Operations was among the signatories for eight of the contracts.  The only exception was the contract for the period July 2003 through June 2004, which was signed only by the former Network Administrator.

None of the contracts were entered into with Board approval, nor was there any indication that the Board had delegated its contracting authority.  Further, six of the contracts indicated that the former Network Administrator resided in the country of Greece and none of the contracts provided performance standards or required documentation of work performed.  There also was no indication that proposals were solicited or that quotes were obtained for these services as required by the purchasing policy.  In 2005, the Board became aware of these contracts.  The Board ratified the final contract because it was already in effect.  However, no further contracts were entered into or approved. 

Finally, controls over the processing of a $1,258 reimbursement for a trip to Greece may have been manipulated and overridden.  The former Assistant Superintendent of Operations submitted this claim.  There was no adequate supporting documentation as to the legitimacy and reasonableness of this trip, nor any evidence that the claim was thoroughly audited.

We have referred the issues presented in this report to the Westchester County District Attorney for investigation.

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. Except as specified in Appendix A, District officials generally agreed with our recommendations and indicated they planned to take corrective action. Appendix B includes our comments on the issues raised in the District’s response letter.