Purpose of Audit

The purpose of our audit was to determine if cafeteria operations were properly managed for the period July 1, 2014 through October 15, 2015.

Background

The Moravia School District is located in the Town of Moravia, Locke, Niles, Sempronius, Summerhill and Venice in Cayuga County; the Town of Skaneateles in Onondaga County and the Town of Lansing in Tompkins County. The District, which operates two cafeterias serving approximately 925 students, is governed by an elected seven-member Board of Education. Budgeted school lunch appropriations for the 2015-16 fiscal year were $588,000.

Key Findings

• District officials did not perform a cost-per-meal analysis and did not always consider past productions when planning future meals, which contributed to the cost of producing a meal exceeding the price charged.
• District officials did not adequately segregate duties over the collection, accounting, and depositing of money or implement adequate mitigating controls, which increases the risk of recording and depositing errors or irregularities.

Key Recommendations

• Analyze school lunch fund operations by completing a cost-per-meal analysis and exploring methods for increasing revenues and potentially decreasing expenditures to a level that allows the fund to be self-sustaining, including monitoring the MPLH and using existing production records.
• Establish procedures to ensure cash receipts are accounted for, including adequately segregating the duties or implementing compensating controls such as having someone not involved in the day-to-day operations.