Background

The Wheelerville Union Free School District (District) is located in the Towns of Caroga and Johnstown in Fulton County. The District is governed by the Board of Education (Board) which comprises five 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 is one school in operation within the District, with approximately 150 students and 35 employees as of June 30, 2006. The District’s budgeted expenditures for the 2006-07 fiscal year were $3.8 million, which were 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 purchasing operations. Specifically, our audit addressed the following related question:

• Are internal controls over purchasing 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 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 of the District’s financial operations included evaluations of the following areas: financial oversight, cash receipts and disbursements, purchasing, payroll and personal services, and information technology. 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 purchasing area and therefore, we examined internal controls over the purchasing process for the period July 1, 2005 to April 30, 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.