School News | Andrew Ujifusa
The school system's procedures for spending and keeping tabs on the money in activity funds were not always followed during the previous fiscal year, an audit of the funds at Montgomery County Public Schools revealed....
...In fiscal 2010, the schools collected just over $32 million for their activity funds and spent just under $31.7 million. Unused revenues from the funds are collected in an interest-bearing Centralized Investment Fund or are stored in individual school accounts if the school chooses to, said Board of Education member Phil Kauffman (At large) of Olney.
Walt Whitman High in Bethesda collected $1.47 million for its activity fund in fiscal 2010, the largest amount of any public school in the county. But in a report from Roger W. Pisha, internal auditor supervisor for the school system, a variety of problems were described in the audit of 82 schools, including 41 secondary schools....
...The greatest disparity between expenses and receipts was at Montgomery Blair High school, which listed $1.02 million in disbursements and only $828,000 in receipts. Kauffman said his understanding was that Blair took out a loan from the Centralized Investment Fund before fiscal 2010 and is now paying it back.
During a Monday meeting of the Board of Education's Fiscal Management Committee, Kauffman, one of its members, stressed that the problems identified in the report are not new.
"How do we get to the point where we're fixing these things?" he asked.
Officials stressed the importance of business managers continuously educating school staff about accounting procedures for activity funds. Pisha's report's recommendations also include hiring two additional internal auditors "when financial conditions become more favorable." The school system's Internal Audit Unit has not added a full-time position since 1990.
School board officials also discussed making the audit reports more broadly available.
"Folks always are asking for and wanting this info," said school board Vice President Christopher S. Barclay (Dist. 4) of Takoma Park, the committee's chairman.
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Read the School Audits compiled and made public by the Parents' Coalition of Montgomery County at our website or click the links below:
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