By Jason Scheer
At the Oct. 19 school board meeting, representatives from accounting firm Miller Lilly & Pearce were on hand to issue their annual audit report. And the results were encouraging.
The accountant's report was multi-faceted, touching on various aspects of the school budget and the financial records of the district.
The firm said that extra classroom activity funds, which are funds designated solely for student use and generated by student fundraising, are being used appropriately.
"It is one of the cleanest extra classroom reports that we issued," Bill Lilly, one of the accountants on hand, said. "We do quite a number of districts and we do see this is an area where there are quite a bit of problems out there in the world, but not here."
The report also praised the district for the way they allocate money within the district. Seventy-six percent of last year's $39,983,338 budget went directly towards instruction, which, according to Lilly, is above average for school districts on Long Island.
In addition, the district also was commended for keeping administration costs down, with only 11 percent of total funds being put towards district office spending, or general support expenditures. That is below the average of 15 percent for Long Island school districts. The accountants recommended the district increase it's general support expenditures slightly, in order to hire a part-time employee to help ease the workload on district employees, and provide support to key functions like payroll and accounts payable.
"Your business office operates on a shoe-string," Lilly said.
Dr. Diane Grucci, assistant superintendent for business and operations, said this was the first time the annual audit report was issued in a public forum. On the heels of financial scandals in school districts in Nassau County, it was important to make sure public fears and questions were answered, said Dr. Diane Grucci, assistant superintendent for business and operations.
"We wanted to issue the report in public and share the strong condition of the school district," she said. "We're very pleased."
