Washingtonville Central School District Internal Controls Over Fuel Inventory

Washingtonville Central School District Internal Controls Over Fuel Inventory - Introduction

Background

The Washingtonville School District (District) is located in the Village of Washingtonville in Orange 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 five schools in operation within the District, with approximately 4,700 students and 860 employees. The District’s budgeted expenditures for the 2005-06 fiscal year were $67.2 million, funded primarily with revenues from local taxes, State and Federal aid.

The District purchases fuel through a State contract. The District uses diesel and gasoline, and maintains the fuel pumps on District property using an automated fuel system. A card system (one card for each vehicle/apparatus) and an employee identification number control fuel usage. During the 2005-06 school year the District’s total fuel consumption was 155,588 gallons with an approximate cost of $316,000.

Objective

The objective of our audit was to evaluate fuel inventory controls. Our audit addressed the following related questions:

Has the Board established adequate internal controls over fuel inventories to protect District assets against loss, waste and misuse, and are those controls operating effectively?

Scope and Methedology

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: cash receipts and disbursements, purchasing, payroll and personal services, capital assets and consumable inventories. 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 fuel inventory area and therefore we examined internal controls over fuel inventories for the period July 1, 2005 to January 23, 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 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 indicated they planned to initiate corrective action.

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.

Complete Audit in PDF