Neighbor News
Comments on the Northport-ENorthport "Corrective Action Plan"
The response of the NEN BOE to the NYS Comptroller's audit recommendations is briefly reviewed.
The Northport-E Northport (NEN) BOE has recently issued their response to the recommendations of the NYS Comptroller’s Audit of the District’s financials. The response, known as the Corrective Action Plan (CAP), can be accessed online at www.boarddocs.com/ny/nens/Board.nsf/files/9SKS4E6B3011/$file/8.04%CAP%20Audit%2001_12_15.pdf
The Comptroller’s report (available on the NEN website) included five recommendations for corrective action. However, the NEN response references only the first three. The following comments mostly refer to recommendation #1.
The NYS Comptroller’s Recommendation #1 stated: “Develop procedures to ensure more realistic budgets to avoid raising property tax unnecessarily”. The NYS Audit report pointed out, among other things, that the NEN BOE had consistently approved budgets which substantially over-estimated actual expenditures (i.e. approved unrealistic budgets)as follows: 2008-09 ($6.4M), 2009-2010 ($8.9M), 2010-2011 ($9.3M), 2011-12 ($7.4M) and 2012-13 ($2.1M). To this can be added 2013-14 ($6.4M) for a total of $40.4M over six years. In other words, taxpayers were led to believe that the District required $40M more than was actually necessary to run the schools over this time period.
The CAP submitted by NEN for Recommendation #1 primarily summarizes the present budget development procedures in the District. It also notes that “steps have been taken to tighten the budget” in 2012-13 and 2013-14 which have resulted in operating deficits of $4.9M and $2.8M, resp. This may be true but is largely irrelevant to the question of over-estimation. This part of the NEN response concludes with a statement that the District is awaiting a report and recommendation from its internal auditor. In effect, this response is a defense of the budgets which were severely criticized by the NYS Comptroller in the audit and can hardly be considered to fit within the parameters of a “Corrective Action Plan”. To the contrary, it seems to support status quo. It is likely that the Comptroller will require a true corrective plan (though that remains to be seen). After all, you can only fool all the people some of the time.
Elsewhere, the NEN response notes that this type of budget is prevalent in other L.I. school districts. From that viewpoint, NEN is not only speaking for itself in its response but also for those other districts, such as Commack. It is unlikely that the Comptroller’s opinion on such (unrealistic) budgets will change, regardless of NEN’s non-corrective plan; instead the districts (and/or their advisors-who probably outlast most BOE’s) will have to change. And, hopefully, the tax levies will go down so that those who do not come to L.I. just “for the schools” will have the option of staying here.
Insofar as access to past financial information, reports on public discussion at BOE meetings, etc. is concerned, the climate in Commack UFSD is far less transparent than in NEN UFSD, and NEN appears more democratic. But the budgets follow the same familiar pattern: namely, overestimation of expenditures, and the assignment of unexpended surplus funds to the next years budget (which is usually not used, except in the last year or so). But will the Commack BOE learn anything from the NEN experience – and apply the lesson?
