Unacceptable accounting stalls school system audit

Anyone who is wondering why an audit of the Board of Education hasn’t been completed yet will be even more steamed to hear that portions of the audit have not even begun because many items in the school system’s budget ledger have not been properly recorded.According to an email from Town Manager Dale Martin this week, auditors from the West Hartford accounting firm BlumShapiro are finding it difficult to reconcile numbers in the school budget with those of the town’s finance director, Henry Centrella.“The board needs to record all transactions correctly,” auditor Vanessa Rossitto wrote to the town manager in an email this week. “This has obviously not been done as of yet because apparently there are more journal entries to be made. Next, the BOE needs to give Henry all the journal entries that were made. Third, the BOE needs to use their reconciliation reports to ensure their data reconciles with Henry’s records. Then, and only then, can we start to audit these numbers.”Astonishingly, the email from Rossitto suggests that an audit of the school system’s accounting has barely begun and may not be completed for weeks, if not months. Accusations that the Board of Education is dragging its feet are now ringing true, and public faith in the board seems to have dissipated. A month ago, on June 15, Martin sent a letter to the Local Government Program Manager Bill Plummer of the state Office of Policy and Management noting that the Winchester school board had requested six extensions for completing an audit of the 2009-10 budget, and that a seventh request for an extension was anticipated.“I expect to report no progress toward audit completion for the rest of this month if school officials are operating under the belief, contrary to their stated intention, that audit information is due ‘as soon as possible’ and up to as late as July 14. I urge representatives of the Office of Policy and Management and the Department of Education to get more engaged with the apparently poorly managed accounting system and process in Winchester schools. This failure to cooperate is creating a series of long-range fiscal implications and uncertainties for both the town and the district.”It should be obvious to everyone by now that the Winchester school district’s accounting system is completely disorganized and probably in need of state intervention, as has been requested by school officials in Bridgeport. With the hiring of new Superintendent of Schools Thomas Danehy this week, Winchester residents can only hope he will immediately take action to expedite audits of the school system’s finances and fix the broken accounting system.