VOORHEESVILLE — In the wake of a critical state audit, which is still ongoing, the Voorheesville School District is reorganizing its business office.

Both the school board president, Joseph Pofit, and the current superintendent, Linda Langevin, said that no other business office employees besides the assistant superintendent, Sarita Winchell, have been placed on leave or resigned. But there has been some redistribution of duties and job titles, they said, and a few part-time consultants have been hired.

While Winchell is on paid leave, the district has independently contracted with Gordon Durnford to be the acting assistant superintendent for business.

A draft of next year’s budget shows Winchell’s salary was proposed to be $62,250. Durnford is receiving $350 per day in compensation.

Langevin said that Durnford, who has 30 years of experience as a school business administrator, works for Voorheesville four days a week. For 17 years, he was the business administrator for the Coxsackie-Athens School District; he also worked for 12 years for Scotia-Glenville school, and he has worked as an interim assistant superintendent for business for Mohonasen.

Pofit said that Voorheesville needed an interim assistant superintendent right away and Durnford is well-known professionally in the Capital Region. He came highly recommended from the New York State School Boards Association, for which he has recently been a contract consultant.

Both Langevin and Pofit said that Durnford has been doing an excellent job. He was appointed by the school board on Jan. 30. Langevin said that she doesn’t know at this point how long he’ll work for Voorheesville.

Durnford emphasized to The Enterprise that he is not considered an employee of the district. He has his own health insurance coverage, he said.

Also, the district contracted on Jan. 30 with Henry Binzer, an accountant who used to be the head auditor for the State Education Department, Langevin told The Enterprise Monday night. His job is to implement the internal control recommended by Betty Cure of NYSSBA’s Advisory Solutions.

Binzer is being paid a set fee not to exceed $3,000.

Cure had been contracted by the district from the end of September until December to review the functions of the business office. She was brought in after the comptroller noted problems Langevin said this week.

Her contract for $7,500 to do a complete analysis of the district’s financial procedures and practices was approved by the board in November. At that time, when Pofit was asked why the district was paying to do a similar review to the state’s, , he stated the district hired Cure because it wanted an independent evaluation and validation.
"We were impressed with the business administrator," Cure’s report says of Winchell. "She has a good technical background of every facet of the business operation and has developed a strong working relationship with the staff."

Cure then went on in her executive summary to offer about 69 recommendations.

One was to appoint a person other than the payroll clerk to act as deputy treasurer, which the board did in December.

Cure also recommended the district hire an internal claims auditor who is not an employee of the district. At the time of her review, the internal claims auditor was also the tax collector and had been assigned other clerical duties in the business office.

Cure could not find board of education resolutions approving all employee salaries and hourly rates, the report says.

Someone other than the payroll clerk should enter salary data to be used for payroll, she recommended.

The payroll clerk should not have sole authority to make payroll changes, the report reads. The payroll clerk had been calculating all the prorated salaries and their payroll changes.

The district may wish to explore the possibility of incorporating accumulated leave days into the payroll computer program so accumulated leave will be printed on paycheck stubs; this would reduce the risk of overpaying employees, the report states.

Cure did not find individual employment contracts detailed in board of education minutes or appended to the minutes. All details of employment contracts should be made part of the minutes, Cure’s report states.

New auditor

A new internal claims auditor was appointed on Jan. 9 by the board. James McAssey started his part-time job on Jan. 17; it pays $14 per hour. He reviews checks and invoices and then reports directly to the board.

McAssey had been a bank executive for many years and is highly qualified, Pofit told The Enterprise. After McAssey retired from banking, he became a part-time bus driver for the Voorheesville School District, Pofit said. The board was lucky to have someone in the district so highly qualified, and he works outside of the business office as required by the comptroller’s state-mandated financial oversight plan, Pofit said.

Now the district is looking to hire an internal auditor, who will basically do whatever the board want him or her to do, Pofit said. This will include carrying out special studies, analyzing trends, reviewing payroll, and looking over vendor contracts, Pofit said. It’s not a full-time position and has to be done by a certified accountant or firm.

In the request for proposals for internal audit services, it states that this auditor will submit a formal report to the board no less than four times a year.

Some of the listed auditor’s tasks are to: perform a risk assessment of the district, identify internal control weaknesses, investigate alleged fraud, and work with the district’s independent auditor.

The board hopes to appoint the internal auditor in April.

By state law, all New York school districts must have an internal auditor in place by July 1.