errors

By Regina Grayson

A financial audit completed by the Department of Examiners of Public Accounts for Luverne High School reported that $15,201.61 were not accounted for during the time period of Jan. 1, 2005, through May 31, 2006.

The report, which was officially filed March 2, 2007, stated that its objective or goal was to &#8220determine whether certain transactions and activities relating to the operations of Luverne High School complied with applicable laws and regulations of the State of Alabama.”

This examination of the school's finances was conducted at the request of the Crenshaw County Board of Education, which at that time included board members W. B. Smith, Jr., Troy Hudson, and former board members Jannie L. Day, Britt Richardson, and William Roper.

Several findings and recommendations were listed by the examiners of the audit. For example, there are established procedures that require teachers to issue receipts to students for any funds that are collected. According to the report, copies of these receipts along with the funds collected are to be given to the school bookkeeper, &#8220who in turn writes the teacher a receipt from a master receipt book.”

From there, the funds are to be deposited into the school's bank accounts, and the teachers' receipts should equal the amount of the master receipt that had been issued to them.

The audit found that, in one instance, the review of a teacher's receipt book for a field trip found that $1,620 of the teacher's receipts had not been master receipted by the school bookkeeper.

&#8220It was concluded that the teacher turned the money in to the office, but the money was not master receipted or posted to the general ledger. It appears this money was used to make up shortages in deposits,” the report stated.

A second finding reported that there were several inconsistencies and failures to follow established procedures when it came to the recording of concessions/snacks daily to that appropriate account.

At one point, the report stated, &#8220On some days when school was in session, there was no record of any concession/snacks sales.”

When it came to school pictures, the audit found several financial discrepancies. Money for Spring 2005 pictures in the amount of $2,914.97, money for Fall 2005 pictures in the amount of $2,630.17, and money for Spring 2006 pictures in the amount of $2,483.13, were found not to be receipted, posted to the general ledger, or deposited into the bank account.

Another item that was listed on the audit indicated a problem with the selling, reporting, receipting and depositing of athletic event tickets.

&#8220The majority of the reports of ticket sales did not indicate the beginning and ending ticket numbers sold for each event, and the individuals selling the tickets did not verify the reports,” the audit stated.

The audit also found that Luverne School's &#8220cheerleader sponsor did not write individual receipts for all payments made by the cheerleadersŠSome of the individual cheerleader receipts were not included in the cheerleader sponsor's master receipts that were forwarded to the school bookkeeper for her to master receipt and post to the cheerleader activity account. This resulted in a shortage in the cheerleader account of $36.29 in the 2006 fiscal year and $3,210.47 in the 2005 fiscal year.”

At the present time, $3,246.76 has been repaid out of the $15,201.61.

&#8220The audit report has been recently received, and the school board is in the process of developing procedures to address the issues identified by the audit,” Crenshaw County School Board attorney Mike Jones said.

Schools Superintendent Kathi Wallace declined comment at this time.

The complete audit may be viewed online at www.examiners.state.al.us/PDFs/Audit06-0519.pdf.