Audit Notes 10 Areas of Improvement Needed for Garwood Board of Education Finances

The Garwood Board of Education was told to keep more thorough financial records and to manage the student activity account more diligently in an audit recommendation by Steve McDermott, a representative from Suplee, Clooney & Co., the firm conducting the audit.

The audit listed 10 areas in need of improvement. Other areas include analysis of payroll, submitting records on a timely basis, maintaining a captial control ledger, to track travel expenditures and to file 1099 tax forms.

Despite the list of recommendations, McDermott issued Garwood an unqualified opinion, giving the report approval with reservations.

"There were a number of errors, but they were correctible," McDermott said. He said of the 10 recommendations, five were repeats of suggestions issued last year.

McDermott said the error repetition would normally concern him, but he knows that there has been turnover in the business administrator position, which handles most of the records.

Superintendent of Schools Theresa Quigley said there have been four people in the position, which might attribute to the problems in the report. She also said Garwood Board of Education was involved in a shared services agreement that "didn't work very well." 

"Next year will be much better," she said. 

Quigley said the district has hired Jean Murray as board administrator to concentrate on the records, in place of John Bolil who served as the board administrator for Garwood and Clark boards of education.

Quigley said many of the errors were minor and they were cited because they did not format things in the way the report wanted. 

For example, she said the board kept records of travel expenditures, but did not file them in the way they wanted.

She also mentioned that this year's report was much more complete than last year's, where five of the seven 1099 tax forms were submitted compared to zero the year before. 

"We aren't pleased with it," said Board President Adele Lewis. "But it is a top priority, and we are shooting for none next year."