Fund balance too high
GCSD get good grades on audit



GUILDERLAND — In a 49-page state-required audit, Dorfman-Robbie, Certified Public Accountants reports only one instance the school district here is not in compliance.

Guilderland’s unreserved, undesignated fund balance was outside the limit set by state law; the rainy-day account is not supposed to be greater than 2 percent of the district’s budget for the upcoming school year.

Alan Walther of Dorfman-Robbie, who presented the report to the school board last Tuesday, said that about half the districts his firm audits are over the 2-percent limit.

At the board’s first meeting in November, Superintendent Gregory Aidala said, he and Assistant Superintendent for Business Neil Sanders will present options on how to address the issue.

Sanders said this week that administrators will work with the school board’s newly-formed business practices committee to come up with options for the $999,200 surplus. Nothing has been proposed yet, he told The Enterprise.
Peter Golden, who chairs that committee, suggested at last Tuesday’s meeting that board members’ ideas about curriculum might "dovetail" with the discussion and those ideas could be e-mailed to the superintendent.
President Richard Weisz warned against putting the cart before the horse. He attributed the excessive fund balance to the district’s receiving "a lot more in state aid than expected after we passed the budget."

Sanders explained that the budget cannot be amended, for example, to add new courses.
"But we could establish reserves," said board member Thomas Nachod.

Several years ago, state legislation was proposed that would have raised the percentage a school district could keep in its fund balance, which many consider to be sound fiscal practice, allowing school districts, for instance, to meet payrolls without borrowing. Governor George Pataki opposed the increase, preferring districts set up reserves for specific purposes.

Sanders told The Enterprise this week that there are limits under the law for amending the budget. "As a general rule, it wouldn’t be possible to initiate a new program," he said. "It has to be unanticipated expenses at the time the budget was approved."
Guilderland currently has six reserve funds, each, Sanders said, "established for a particular purpose"; the district has reserve funds for workers’ compensation, unemployment insurance, repairs, retirement contributions, tax certiorari, and employee benefits and accrued liabilities.

The auditor’s report lists a number of reserve funds, in addition to the ones the district has already set up, including: capital reserve, to pay for bonds; reserve for tax reduction; reserve for debt service; property loss and liability reserve; reserve for insurance recoveries; and reserve for encumbrances.
Board member Barbara Fraterrigo said at last Tuesday’s meeting that, if courses couldn’t be added, she felt comfortable saving the extra money for next year "even though it’s against the law."

"Highest level of assurance"

The report, which the board unanimously accepted, analyzes the district’s financial performance over the fiscal year that ended on June 30, 2006. It consists of three parts: management’s discussion and analysis, the basic financial statements, and required supplementary information.

In examining internal controls over financial reporting, the auditor identified no material weaknesses.

In looking at federal awards, the auditor again identified no material weaknesses in internal control over major programs.
The "unqualified" opinions in the report, Walther said, are "the highest level of assurance we can give."
"In a nutshell," he said, referring to the over-2-percent fund balance, "there is only one instance of noncompliance."

In May, the district’s $79 million budget passed with 56 percent voting for it, and the $828,200 proposition for 10 buses and a plow truck passed with 59 percent voting for it.
The district’s 2005-06 actual revenue exceeded its budgeted revenue by $1.9 million due primarily to "the receipt of funds related to additional investment income as a result of higher interest rates, additional state aid resulting from a consultant study, and larger than expected refunds of prior years’ expenses or E-rate and utility costs," the report says.

The district hired a firm to look at its state aid reimbursement for special education and received an extra $280,000, said Sanders, explaining what the auditors meant by aid resulting from a consultant study.

Sanders also told The Enterprise that "E-rate referred to a universal service fund customers pay on telephone and cable bills, assessed by the federal government. Schools can apply for these funds based on the number of students they have who receive free or reduced-price lunches, said Sanders.

In other highlights, the report says, the district’s expenditures were under spent by $1.2 million due largely to savings in instruction, special education, and employee benefits.

The school district’s total assessed valuation rose by $760 million, or 37.5 percent in the 2005-06 fiscal year, largely due to re-assessment in the town of Guilderland, which comprises 93 percent of the district’s tax base.

Other business

In other business, the board:

— Appointed EthicsPoint to provide a fraud and abuse hotline service.

The district received two other proposals, Sanders said.
Weisz said that having a hotline is consistent with recommendations from the state comptroller’s office and Guilderland selected an option that has a "live person" staffing the hotline to assure confidentiality, so that callers don’t need to worry about being recorded.

This option is more expensive and will cost $2,200 for the year, said Sanders;

— Appointed Amy Draiss as a parent advocate on the district’s Committee on Preschool Special Education;

— Accepted the donation of about 40 three-ring binders from the Daughters of Charity;

— Adopted a policy on the admission of foreign students who are not immigrants but are, rather, part of recognized exchange programs;

— Continued discussion of board members’ priorities for the upcoming year. President Weisz has asked that members reach consensus on one or two top priorities at the next meeting, Oct. 24.
As board members again discussed priorities ranging from developing a technology curriculum to continuing to stress healthy eating, Superintendent Aidala said, "I don’t want to lose sight of the many excellent things happening in the district...
"I would take exception to the idea we get a curriculum and drop it in place...We need to plan and get people involved...We have a lot of initiatives underway."
Board Vice President John Dornbush concluded that nothing board members said "is meant as criticism." He stated, "We just want to move things forward...We want to work with our staff";

— Heard from Nancy Andress, assistant superintendent for instruction, that Debra Wing, Westmere Elementary kindergarten teacher and author, will present a workshop in November at the National Association for the Education of Young Children, in Atlanta, Ga.;

— Learned that art teacher Mary K Weeks and her fifth-grade students at Westmere Elementary School will, again, design a special window display at The Little Bookhouse in Stuyvesant Plaza for Winter Festival 2006.

The students will also work with graphic artist Nick Acemoglu;
— Heard congratulations for Isabelle Doyle, a Guilderland Elementary School fourth-grader whose poem, "Sun Has Risen," was published in Skribblers, a literary newsletter of children’s works;

— Heard about the Farnsworth Bureau of Investigation led by eighth-grade science teachers Carol Kelly, Todd Hilgendorff, and Julie Long, in which students used science, technology, forensic, and research skills to identify the unknown remains of a famous scientist;

— Learned that the Committee on Diversity will sponsor a workshop on Saturday, Nov. 18, to introduce parents to the National Coalition Building Institute. NCBI is an international leadership training organization that has, since 1984, worked to end prejudice. The program is available to middle-school and high-school staff and students at Guilderland.

Registration is required and is limited to 25 participants. Andress said that, so far, only three people had signed up. Those interested in registering should contact Castila Commisso by phone at the district office at 456-6200, ext. 3123 or by e-mail at [email protected] by Nov. 9;

— Heard that the Guilderland Music Faculty and Friends will hold a recital on Oct. 25 at 7 p.m. in the high school’s auditorium. Teachers from every grade level, administrators, and students will perform.

The public is invited. There is no admission charge but donations will be collected, to be given to the Nation’s Food Bank Network; and

— Met in closed session to discuss a student issue and to review administrators’ performance.

No actions were taken after the executive session, Aidala told The Enterprise this week.