Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Comments from the State Auditor's Office at the Fox C-6 September 16, 2014 BOE Meeting

Fox C-6's September 16, 2014 school board meeting was well attended. Many attended the meeting to hear comments from the state auditor. State auditor Tom Schweich was listed on the agenda as speaking at the school board meeting. However, Mr. Schweich did not speak but one of audit managers did.

I will post highlights from last night's BOE meeting this evening. For now I wanted to get the information out about the state audit to the public.

Fox C-6 State Audit Information
One of the most important points from the audit manager was the fact that you can contact them with issues of concern that you think they should look into during the audit. He stressed that the sooner you can get that information to them the better as it will help them plan their areas of focus.

Comments about the Fox C-6 state audit:
  • The community can contact the state auditors in charge of the audit with areas of concern that the audit team may need to investigate.
  • An auditor will arrive on Monday September 22, 2014 to begin working on the audit.
  • The whole process could take up to a year.
  • Since the audit was invoked under the state statutes and not requested by petition there will be NO CHARGE to the district for the audit.
  • They are here to gather evidence to support their report.
  • They will evaluate internal controls over significant management and financial functions.
  • They will evaluate the district's compliance with certain legal provisions.
  • They will evaluate the economy and efficiency of certain management practices and operations including certain financial transactions.
  • Additional audit staff will arrive in the next several weeks to help with the audit.
  • There will eventually be 2 to 3 auditors working at Fox on a daily basis.
  • The audit team will spend 2 to 4 months or more reviewing records at Fox.
  • It will take another 2 to 4 months or more to put together their findings.
  • Focus of the audit will be the most recent completed fiscal year ending June 30, 2014.
  • Depending on what they find during the field work they can go back further.
  • The audit team will not be releasing any preliminary findings to the public during the audit.
  • It could take up to a year to complete the audit before their report is released to the public.
  • The audit team will review the audit findings with Fox's school board prior to releasing the information to the public to get their responses to their findings.
    (You can read the 2002 Fox C-6 State Audit Report to understand why this is done.)
  • Once the audit team has reviewed the findings with the Fox C-6 BOE and gotten their responses, the audit team will write the final report and present it to the community.