23 new school audits available

Misuse of student-owned funds continues at some schools

An additional 23 school Independent Activity Fund audits are now available on the main Parents' Coalition web site, and many of the newest audit reports raise more questions than they answer.

Some of the audits appear to show improvements in fiscal management, but at the same time, a new level of obfuscation has crept into the reports. While most of the older reports cite specific compliance metrics, the newer reports give fewer numbers and make more generalizations about compliance.

Since the auditors follow a standard process that measures compliance, they could have easily included a uniform report that gives the numerical results of evaluations performed during each audit. 

The Parents' Coalition has, in the past, asked MCPS to post all audits on the MCPS web site, but they have refused, claiming that the audits are "internal documents", even though the funds are officially classified as student property.

What is clear, however, is that misuse of funds continues at some schools, and no high school is fully in compliance with the rules for administration of the Independent Activity Funds.

More audits will be posted as soon as they are released by MCPS to the Parents' Coalition.

Access the 2009 & 2010 audits