7:05 p.m.: Leon County School Board members expressed shock at more than two dozen audit findings reported by the state Auditor General. District officials say the issues represent paperwork problems more than they do any wrongdoing.
Leon County School district officials say most of the 28 findings submitted by the state auditor general are fixed, or are in the process of being fixed. And they say while some issues may sound severe-- such as one finding that cited a lack of financial controls over who has access to the district’s bank account--most of it boils down to paperwork problems.
“Number Three- controls over electronic funds transfers could be enhanced. Actually, our controls are okay," says Leon School District Chief Financial Officer Merrill Wimberly. "What we didn’t have, they weren’t documented. We have very good controls.”
But the sheer amount of findings is unusual. And some of them are things the district has been docked for in the past. That bothers board member DeeDee Rasmussen.
“I am pleased to see the specificity of the date—the completion date and keeping this as a live document," she says. "One of the things that gives me the most heartburn about this report is the number of repeat findings.”
Nearly a third of the findings deal primarily with how the district deals with big construction projects—an issue that is also the subject of an ongoing FBI investigation.
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Oringial Story: The Leon County School board will hear the results of preliminary findings by the Florida Auditor General.
The report is part of the district’s scheduled state audit process which occurs every three years. The state auditor general docked the Leon County School district 28 times for issues like failing to make sure people who are promoted have proper credentials, to failing to follow the state’s competitive bidding rules regarding major construction projects. The audit also found some administrative problems with the virtual education programs and district IT systems.
The School Board is meeting this afternoon to go over the audit findings and the district’s response to them. The district has thirty days to respond to the audit and detail corrective actions it has or plans, to take. The document posted to the district’s website has an outline of the responses.
Check back later on for more on this story.
