Commack School District's Budget Games Continue..

The NYS Comptroller’s Office’s recent audit report of “Hoosic Valley Central School District” provides further proof that the Commack school district’s budgeting practices are improper.  Relevant excerpts from the report are set forth below.

http://www.osc.state.ny.us/localgov/audits/schools/2014/hoosicvalley.pdf?utm_source=weeklynews20140615&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=061114arelease

“District officials should not appropriate unexpended surplus funds simply to circumvent the statutory limit. Because the budgeting process ultimately determines the District’s expected tax levy amount, accurate estimates are imperative to help ensure real property taxes levied are not greater than necessary.

We identified four expenditure accounts which were consistently overestimated:  District transportation, hospital and medical insurance, State and Local Employees’ Retirement System and Teachers’ Retirement System.  In the 2011-12 and 2012-13 fiscal years, the District expended $665,000 (14 percent) and $653,000 (14 percent) less than the Board budgeted for in these four accounts. According to District officials, they included excess amounts in these appropriation accounts in case of unforeseen circumstances. Based on historic actual expenditures, this is not a reasonable manner to estimate appropriations. Further, the District has ample fund balance to provide for unanticipated events without continuing to include excess amounts in the budgets.

The District’s 2013-14 budget also includes overestimated appropriations. Although the District expended less than $19 million in each of the 2011-12 and 2012-13 fiscal years, the Board adopted a 2013-14 budget that contained more than $20.2 million of appropriations. The Board also increased appropriations by $178,000 for the four accounts which we found were overestimated in the 2011-12 and 2012-13 fiscal years. Based on 2011-12 and 2012-13 expenditures and information for 2013-14, this increase does not appear reasonable.”

Do you believe it a mere coincidence that the overestimated accounts identified by the Comptroller above are basically the same beefed up accounts noted by the Commack School District in its “Contingency Memo”?  I think not. See link https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3cbjRc1NY_pTGNrX0ZReFV0TXc/edit?usp=sharing    I continue to hope that the Comptroller’s Office will audit the Commack School District, sooner rather than later, so as to put an end this deceitful practice.  

In the meantime, to those who may still doubt my claim, think about this…where do you think the money came from that the District is using to fund the undisclosed raises that the majority of the Board just approved for administrators and non-aligned employees? (including, believe it or not, a raise for Dr. James’ secretary whose salary is closing in on $110k + benefits).   

While I believe some raises are warranted, what I find most disturbing, as noted by blogger GM’s earlier post, is that these raises were not disclosed/included in the budget prior to being presented to voters - nor was any information on the increases disclosed to the public at last week’s board meeting.  In my view, this can only be discribed as insidious and totally underscores the falsity of the District's efforts at improving transparency.  I will write more about this issue in a future post, but for now I urge you to watch the video. (starts at 1.0 min mark) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MESdJvFbXvc