GUILDERLAND — The school district got a good report on how it handles its finances, according to a required audit on the 2006-07 school year prepared by Dorfman-Robbie, Certified Public Accountants. No material weaknesses were identified in the 50-page report.
"We’re very pleased to have an unqualified opinion, which is the highest opinion," said Assistant Superintendent for Business Neil Sanders this week.
"It's great"" said board member Hy Dubowsky just before the board unanimously accepted the audit. "I'm going to go to bed tonight and not worry about that."

In presenting the report to the school board last Tuesday, Rick Bingham of Dorfman-Robbie said that the audit found one instance of noncompliance and one insufficiency.

The school district's unreserved, undesignated fund balance was outside the state's limit, which restricts it to an amount not greater than 3 percent of the budget for the upcoming school year.

Sanders said $2 million of Guilderland's excess fund balance will be used to lower borrowing costs if a $27 million bond issue is passed in November to upgrade the elementary schools, improve technology and safety, and move the district office to the high school. That leaves about $240,000 in excess that has to be addressed, he said.

The audit also says that Guilderland does not currently prepare full financial statements in accordance with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles.
"This basically says we don't have a CPA on our staff," said board President Richard Weisz, who also heads the board's audit committee. "We have to use you to do it," he said to Bingham.

Weisz asked how many other schools had the same deficiency.

"Out of the nine we do, only one is not receiving that comment," Bingham responded.

Several other problems were also outlined in a Sept. 18 letter to the board from Dorfman-Robbie.

New reporting requirements set up by the Government Accounting Standards Board say that, by the year ending on June 30, 2009, the reporting of liabilities pertaining to post-employment benefits must be done on a current basis. An actuarial calculation should be done in anticipation of the change, the audit says, and the district is taking the appropriate actions to ensure financial statements are in compliance.
"We’ve contracted with the Capital Region BOCES for that service," he said, referring to the Board of Cooperative Educational Services. "That’s well underway. We’ve been sending them data."
Sanders added, "The entire cost is fully BOCES aided." Guilderland gets about 60 percent back in state aid from BOCES expenditures.

Also, while going over the extra-classroom fund, Dorfman-Robbie noted several places where signatures, either of the student treasurer or faculty advisor, were missing on requisition forms. The firm recommended the advisor be reminded of the requirement and that the request forms be reviewed by management.
"Those accounts are audited every year by Dorfman-Robbie," Sanders said this week of accounts for student organizations. He added that now, someone from the district’s business office will conduct periodic reviews of the accounts throughout the year. Also, he is holding a meeting with all club advisors in October, Sanders said, to go over the roles and duties of the faculty advisors and student treasurers.

Finally, Dorfman-Robbie said that the district does not have a well-defined, written disaster recovery procedures.

"The time to make contingency plans is before disaster strikes," the report says, "so that personnel will be aware of their responsibilities in the event of an emergency situation that precludes the use of the existing facilities."

"We've been looking at templates," Sanders told the school board, and talks are ongoing with the Capital Region BOCES. "That's our backup site," said Sanders.

The district already has handled a minor emergency. About a year ago, Sanders said, the district's server went down so Guilderland used BOCES servers to do its payroll.

Sanders explained this week that data is archived from the district office — it’s backed up every day — and stored off-site at Farnsworth Middle School.
"If both our school and the middle school were destroyed," he said, "BOCES would have a copy of the data".BOCES is working on its own backup plan, reaching out to other BOCES across the state."

Dorfman-Robbie acknowledged "the cooperation and the professional conduct of the business office personnel" and thanked the district staff "for the courtesy received during the course of our audit."

Bingham commended Sanders and Joy Pierle, chief accountant, "for their professional conduct."

Sanders, in turn, recognized Pierle and the business office staff.

The board’s audit committee met on Sept. 27 with representatives from the state comptroller’s office to review its preliminary report, completed in March. Sanders said he expects the comptroller’s audit, which is similar to those being conducted across the state, to be released in early November.