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Friday, January 25, 2008

Lancaster ISD audit raises questions

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— The auditing firm Judd, Thomas, Smith presented its audit of LISD finances at a special called meeting of the Lancaster Independent School District trustees on January 24, 2008. Andrew Moore of the auditing firm gave the audit presentation.

In summary, Mr. Moore said LISD has made a lot of progress since last year on several areas of improvement noted in the audit of the 2005-2006 fiscal year. A fiscal year ends on August 31 of a year. He said, however, that the LISD had not completely met all of its areas of improvement.

One area of improvement noted by the auditor that was not met was the school district’s nutrition program. The district was required to take a small sample of the families using the nutrition program. Out of 30 samples, the firm found 3 families with errors. The errors included lack of documentation showing entitlement to the nutrition. Proper documentation included pay stubs. The effect of the errors was that LISD would be classified as “not low risk” for the nutrition program. Mr. Moore emphasized that doesn’t mean LISD is high risk. He also stated that an action plan had been implanted to address the problem in the future.

Trustee Carolyn Morris asked questions about the Activity Fund. The Auditing firm said the Activity Fund was not audited and had never been audited. Morris stated that she had to leave the meeting early and stated that, even though she wouldn’t be present to vote, she wanted the record to show she did not approve of the audit.

The meeting became heated at one point when trustee Margie King began to question the auditor. She read a statement verbatim from the audit that stated all budget amendments must be prospective. Then she read a statement from the audit stating that the school district had made no retroactive budget amendments. She questioned why the audit firm would state as a fact in its audit that the school district had not made a retroactive budget amendment, when in fact, just a week and half earlier, on January 14, 2008, the school district had indeed passed a retroactive budget amendment, amending the 2006-2007 budget.

Before the auditor could answer that question, Superintendent Larry Lewis broke in. He leveled the charge at Margie King that she was about to break up the Team of Eight. Margie King replied that she resented the manner in which the Superintendent addressed her.

Trustee Russ Johnson then broke in with his own comment. Rather than ask questions concerning the audit, he, in a forceful tone of voice stated that school finances are very difficult to understand, and even though he had been on the board for eight years, he still can’t understand them. He stated that’s why they hire professionals like the CPA firm before them.

This article was submitted by a member of the Pegasus News community.


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Comments

estherspeaks Anonymous

Dr. King is one that refuses to let the superintendent or even a CPA firm do her thinking for her. If anyone remembers the Enron debacle, they would recall that the board put their head in the sand also and look what that led to. If this board does not wake up this district will have the Wilmer-Hutchins legacy also. We cannot keep borrowing money and think we will not eventually have to pay the piper.

Transparent government is what this nation was built on and yet we keeping hiding behind Lewis and accepting anything he says as gospel. Ed Kirkland, please don't let every good thing you ever stood for go completely down hill. Be a man and demand Lewis answer to the board instead of the board answering to him.

6 months ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

queensheeba Anonymous

As usual the puppeteer (Lewis) is controlling the strings on the majority of our beloved school board members. The most controlled puppet seems to be our board president. I think his head has overgrown since being elected. I think at the next board meeting someone needs to check and make sure all the strings are connected securly to those members that can not question or try to get answers they know that the public wants to know. I agree estherspeaks, we are on the road to becoming the next WH. Board members if you want to be puppets, then you need to be puppets for the taxpayer and their money.

PS. How does a Good Kid featured in the DMN live in Desoto and attend Lancaster HS. and play volleyball????

5 months, 4 weeks ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

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