State comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli criticized the Northport school district Friday in an audit of how it handles extra-class activity funds.
District Superintendent Robert Banzer said, “The district has been in receipt of the audit and responded to the state comptroller’s office accordingly. The district is committed to ensuring the recommendations made by the auditors are addressed appropriately and have already implemented many corrective actions as outlined in the response. The district will also submit a Board approved Corrective Action Plan (“CAP”) within the timeframe established by OSC to address all findings.”
At issue is how the district collected, recorded, remitted, deposited, disbursed and reconciled funds, the audit said.
The findings included:
- Collections totaling $5,767 were not recorded in the accounting records and were not deposited in the bank and collections of $845,258 were missing key support.
- Records to support transactions totaling $134,449 were missing and 95 payment request forms totaling $66,149 either had no supporting documents or the support lacked key information.
- ECA bank reconciliations from a middle school were performed incorrectly, resulting in balance errors totaling as much as $9,370 that went undetected and uncorrected.
- The last six ECA external audits resulted in qualified opinions because records were not adequate to permit an audit.
DiNapoli’s office said that ECA funds are generated by school organizations whose activities are conducted by students, such as clubs, teams and student council (club). Funds are derived from several sources, such as admissions to paid events, sales and donations. Clubs also hold fundraisers to raise money for school trips and to support charities.
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