Jackson, Cape school districts get audit reports

Recently released audit reports for the 2001-2002 school year brought good news to one local school district, and uncovered some accounting mistakes in another.

The Jackson School District's financial situation was given a clean bill of health with no findings requiring a corrective action plan, according to an audit report by Larson, Allen, Weshair & Co., LLP.

"In many areas, we came in better on revenues than anticipated and under on expenditures, which is a good thing," said Jim Welker, assistant superintendent of finance.

Welker said the only area of concern facing the district is compliance with new reporting standards adopted by the Governmental Accounting Standards Board.

The district must comply with these new standards, which requires schools to report fixed assets in their financial statements, by the end of the year.

"Basically, the district did well, although we're still facing some challenges like hiring additional teachers," Welker said.

Jackson superintendent Dr. Ron Anderson said he felt the audit was positive overall.

"It's a compliment to our staff for doing things well," Anderson said. "It reinforced that the district is continuing to grow."

Cape Girardeau

The Cape Girardeau School District's audit, performed by Beussink, Hey, Roe, Seabaugh & Stroder, LLC, found one reportable condition tied to mistakes in the district's new accounting software program.

"We understated expenditures and overstated our liabilities during the first three months of last year," said Rob Huff, the district's chief financial officer.

As a result, general fund expenditures exceeded budgetary limits by $58,719, causing the district to be in violation of the state budget law, which requires districts to not spend more money from a particular fund than what was originally budgeted for that fund.

Huff said had they realized the error existed, the district would have simply made a budget amendment and transferred money from another fund to the general fund.

"We actually spent less than we budgeted, we just had it in the wrong fund," Huff said.

The report blames the errors on a new software package implemented in July 2001, claiming "the staff received insufficient training from the software vendor on using the new system."

The report stated that several adjustments to payroll transactions in the first quarter of the fiscal year were posted as reductions of liability accounts instead of increases to expenditure accounts.

The audit recommended that school administrators should review financial reports periodically for unusual or inappropriate items. Huff said the misstatements will have no effect on the 2002-2003 budget.

"It has all been corrected and it left our balances where we thought they would be," Huff said.

cclark@semissourian.com

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