An audit of the West Windsor-Plainsboro Regional School District’s finances is showing the district to, yet again, be in good shape.##M:[more]##
Scott Clellan — of Wiss and Company, which has offices in New Jersey and New York — made a presentation to the WW-P school board during its October 28 meeting, reporting that his firm performed two analyses as required annually by state law. The first is a comprehensive annual finance report, and the second is a report on internal controls and the district’s compliance with state laws and regulations.
“The most important part of any audit is a clean opinion or an unqualified opinion,” Clellan explained. “Overall it’s a very, very good report. The financial position of the district is in very good shape. It’s consistent with the results of the prior year. I think that’s commendable under today’s economic conditions.”
Clellen said that the district’s financial statements are slightly more complicated compared with other districts because the WW-P school district does a lot more work. “Last year you went through the process of refunding your debt and saving lots of money for taxpayers by refunding that debt,” he said. In addition, this year the school board issued around $10 million to finish the referendum project that was authorized a few years ago.
One of Clellan’s concerns last year was that there was money from the School Development Authority that was outstanding for over $4.5 million for the past five years. But “we were thrilled to hear that that money came in,” he said. “You were able to use that money to pay off that note you had to pay to finance some of the previous referendum.”
Clellan said that many new state regulations came into play this year, many of which were retroactive, including one that allows school boards to put funds aside into various reserves — a practice that had been taken away three or four years ago, and reinstated this past year after the state realized “it was something they should not have done” — through board resolution at the end of the school year in June. He said he was happy to see that the board did put money aside into places like the emergency and maintenance reserves.
With regard to the management report, there were no significant findings and no significant deficiencies, he said. He said there were a few minor glitches here and there, but “nothing anyone should lose sleep over.”
One other area that school districts are usually concerned about is the area of “repeat findings,” the section of the audit that shows whether a district has had the same issues or deficiencies recurring consistently year after year — a problem that could result in a two-point reduction in QSAC, or the New Jersey Quality Single Accountability Continuum.
The QSAC, mandated by state law, requires that the performance of a public school district be measured in five areas —instruction and program, fiscal management, personnel, governance, and operations. Evaluations of these standards determines whether a district can be designated as “high performing,” and what support and assistance, including monetary, it receives from the state.
Clellan said his firm spent time looking at the district’s use of money from federal and state programs, and that it found no issue with anything, and that WW-P has no repeat findings.
District officials are looking to submit the audit report for recognition by the Association of School Business Officials (ASBO) International to obtain the certificate of excellence in financial recording. “I think it will meet the requirements,” Clellan said.
