FOR RELEASE:

Comptroller DiNapoli Releases School Audits

New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli today announced his office completed audits of the Mechanicville City School District and the Riverhead Charter School.

“My office’s audits of school districts, charter schools and BOCES help schools improve their financial management practices,” DiNapoli said. “These audits are tools for schools to make sure proper policies and procedures are in place to protect taxpayer dollars and provide students with the best possible education.”

Mechanicville City School District – Internal Controls Over Purchasing (Saratoga County)
Auditors tested approximately $1.1 million in claims that required competitive bidding and found district officials properly advertised for bids and the school board awarded the contracts to the lowest bidder. District officials have also implemented control processes to ensure purchase orders are properly initiated and approved prior to purchases being made.

Riverhead Charter School – Fiscal Monitoring, Leave Accruals and Information Technology (Suffolk County)
The school board did not approve the 2011-12 annual budget by June 1, 2011 as required. Auditors found discrepancies among the budget submitted to the New York State Education Department, the school board-approved budget and budgetary amounts in the school’s budget-to-actual report. Leave accrual balances maintained by the payroll clerk were not reviewed for accuracy or reconciled to leave balances on employees' pay stubs after processing by the payroll vendor.