School News

E.R. School District making fiscal adjustments

Posted

In response to an annual New York State purchasing audit, the East Rockaway School District has implemented a plan to address areas of improvement as outlined in the report.

State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli oversees the fiscal affairs of school districts statewide by routinely conducting audits, which identify opportunities for improving district operations, and can often save school districts money. The findings of the audit, which covered July 1, 2014 through July 31, 2015, were shared with district officials who agreed with the comptroller’s suggestions and submitted a corrective action plan on Jan. 9.

“In an era of limited resources and increased accountability, it’s critical that schools make every dollar count,” DiNapoli said. “By auditing school district and charter school finances and operations, my office continues to provide taxpayers the assurance that their money is being spent appropriately and effectively.”

Some of DiNapoli’s findings revealed that East Rockaway district officials “did not always use competition when making purchases and procuring professional services.” In addition, the report said the district did not always have written agreements with service providers.

“We certainly welcome any opportunity to receive recommendations for any way we can improve our practices,” said Superintendent Lisa Ruiz. “These are easy to fix — we’ve even corrected some of the areas already.” She said that James Robinson, assistant superintendent for finance and operations for the district, who has held the role since June 2014, has tackled areas of improvement ahead of the audit.

The comptroller’s office recently implemented a system that tracks school districts’ fiscal stress, and East Rockaway has demonstrated significant growth over the last year, according to school officials. In Dec. 2014 the district was labeled as suffering from “moderate fiscal stress,” but by the end of 2015 the school had improved its fiscal health to the point where no designation was noted.

Page 1 / 2