The Roslyn public schools had almost no questionable payments for April, May and June, according to a presentation at a Board of Education meeting on Oct. 7.
Shari Diamond, partner for Cerini & Associates LLP, the district’s claims auditors, gave the firm’s findings on payments made from the general, trust and agency, school lunch, federal, and capital funds accounts for the quarter.
The presentation was broken down into total claims, total findings and overall incident percentage over the three months. Claims are made by Roslyn’s business office staff, which determines that payments were made to eligible parties. Cerini then searches for any irregularities.
Findings are defined as misstatements or errors that lead to incorrect financial statements.
The overall incident report reflects the number of issues that do not affect financial statements that are relevant to an audit. Out of the district’s claims for the quarter, there was one matter in regard to the handling of $85, leading to an incident percentage of 0.11.
Over the three months, the district had a total of 918 claims, amounting to a total of $18,371,144.92, excluding Medicare claims.
That compared with the prior quarter’s 1,422 claims, excluding Medicare.
Both quarters had no findings, and the most recently reported quarter had a drop in overall incident percentage by 0.03, making April, May and June’s percentage 0.11.
Diamond commended the district’s proactivity in conducting business and in communicating with the firm. She said that the district always handled things properly.
“This is probably one of the better districts we have, so thank you,” Diamond said. “It’s really, really excellent to see these numbers.”
Two bullets were presented as proactive measures implemented. The first one read, “Management continues to educate its staff on the District’s purchasing policies and practices so that all authorizing administrators understand and abide by the District’s purchasing policies.”
The second point read, “The Business Office staff continues to come to us with any claims related questions they have prior to processing their claims.”
After Cerini’s quarterly summary, Superintendent Allison Brown and board President Meryl Waxman Ben-Levy did not have reports or comments, but each commended the district’s effort and school spirit during homecoming.
