District: The State Owes Us Money

The New Jersey Schools Development Authority (SDA) still owes over $400,000 in grants to the Ridgewood School District for upgrades made to school buildings as far back as 2002, the district says.

And it's not a new problem, Superintendant Dr. Daniel Fishbein said by phone Thursday. "We didn't just discover this in the audit," he said.

According to the superintendent, it's something the district has been dealing with for years as the state tries to push through a mountain of paperwork it can't seem to get through.

According to an audit report on the 2009-10 budget presented at the school board meeting Monday, the state still owes Ridgewood schools approximately $400,000 for 12 capital projects done to improve buildings. These projects included renovations to classrooms, bathrooms and electrical systems across the district.

The SDA has made some payments but, according to Ridgewood Assistant Superintendent of Business Angelo DeSimone, no formal time schedule for payment has been kept, but paperwork has been submitted.

"It's a drawn-out process to get done," DeSimone said.

According to Larry Hanover,  a representative from the SDA, payment is based on the progress of the project and relies on all applicable paperwork being submitted.

"We're working with the district to resolve all the paperwork issues" Hanover said when reached for comment on Tuesday.

Fishbein said in a subsequent interview that the district will submit paperwork and the state will come back and ask for more paperwork on, for example, insurance. Essentially, it's a back-and-forth process that ends up marked with a lot of red tape.

Accountant Susan White performed the annual independent budget audit on the Ridgewood district. White said she received confirmation from the SDA they owed the money while performing the audit in 2009, but never received the confirmation this year.

A document from the SDA lists 14 projects with grants given to Ridgewood, all of them executed on Feb. 22, 2010. These were apparently not included in the sum previously owed but are, according to Hanover, "not an issue."

The SDA claims to have paid over $390,000 of the money to the schools last year and Fishbein says $400,000 is still owed. He said on Thursday that the capital projects did not include the recent bond referendum.

DeSimone said the district had been contacting the SDA about twice a month regarding the older grants, but had not heard back from them recently.

"We hope that in seven years we won't be hearing the same thing," Fishbein said in reference to the projects at Monday's meeting. "We hope that the state will somehow miraculously catch up with the paperwork and get us the money they promised us."

The audit also uncovered a computer error which caused the district's financial details to display incorrect amounts for specific items, though the totals of the accounts remained correct and all money is accounted for. Similar problems have occurred in Glen Rock and Chatham districts, which use the same program. DeSimone said he was working with the programmers to correct the issues, and that he stood by the system.

"This software has more capability than anything on the market," DeSimone said.

"Once we get through this, I think it's the most robust package around."

White also noted that all of the issues found during the audit of the 2008-09 budget had been corrected.

[Editor's note: Correction – An earlier version of this article stated that the district is owed over $1 million. Figures on Thursday reveal that number to be $400,000. The correction has been reflected.]