Hevesi Announces Audits of Schools Statewide
New York State Comptroller Alan G. Hevesi today announced that his office is undertaking audits in 23 school districts around the state as part of his effort to increase oversight of schools statewide.
The State Comptroller’s office began auditing public school districts, primarily on Long Island, in August 2004 in the wake of theft and other wrongdoing by senior management and outside auditors and at the Roslyn Union Free School District, and scandals in several other school districts. In Roslyn, State Comptroller’s office auditors identified $11.2 million that was used by school employees, their friends and families for personal benefit.
Hevesi also received additional funding from the Legislature and the Governor to hire 89 auditors to conduct regular audits of school districts statewide. Each of the state’s school districts, BOCES and charter schools must now be audited by the Comptroller’s office over the next five years. In addition, Hevesi pushed for a Five-Point School Accountability Plan signed into law in July 2005 to strengthen auditing, training and financial oversight by school district officials and their boards.
“While the overwhelming majority of school district officials are honest, hard-working individuals, who live by the highest ethical standards, these incidents on Long Island have demonstrated the need for increased scrutiny of our school districts,” Hevesi said. “Our goal is to help schools focus on providing the best education for our children by making sure that each school district has an effective financial monitoring system and to identify and improve those that may have financial management problems.
“We have no knowledge that anyone in any of these districts has done anything improper and no one should jump to any conclusions. It is my hope that these audits will be useful in improving operations, but will find no impropriety,” Hevesi said.
Schools where audits are underway or will begin soon include:
- Capital Region/Hudson Valley: Cairo-Durham, Catskill, Coxsackie-Athens, Mount Vernon, Port Jervis, Sullivan West, Voorheesville and Windham-Ashland-Jewett
- Central New York/Finger Lakes: Geneva, Hannibal, Oswego, Phoenix and Solvay
- Long Island: Of the 23 audits started as part of the initial response to the scandals, 16 are complete and another six audits are still in progress at the Brentwood, East Islip, Manhasset, Three Village, William Floyd and Wyndanch school districts, as well as Nassau County BOCES. Another three audits are underway at the Center Moriches, Mineola and Patchogue-Medford school districts.
- North Country: Corinth, Heuvelton and Schuylerville
- Southern Tier: Franklin and Spencer Van-Etten
- Western New York: Allegany-Limestone and Cassadaga Valley
The audits will generally focus on the districts’ financial internal controls and operations and financial condition. Districts were selected to be audited for a variety of reasons such as letters from residents or taxpayers, requests from school officials, size of the district and staff availability.
###
Albany Phone: (518) 474-4015 Fax:(518)
473-8940
NYC Phone: (212) 681-4825 Fax:(212) 681-4468
Internet: http://www.osc.state.ny.us
E-Mail:press@osc.state.ny.us |
