External Audit Report (2014-15) and CCS

The External Auditor’s Report for 2014-15 was approved by the Northport-E Northport (NEN) BOE at its October 2015 meeting. It is briefly reviewed below. Some comments on the District’s Common Core activities are also included.

The voter-approved budget for 2014-15 totalled $160.3M while actual expenditures were 154.2M so that expenses were overestimated by $6.1M. This compares to the average overestimation of $6.7M during the previous 6 years. In the response to the NYS Comptroller’s Audit Report, it was stated that “The District believes that the budget is realistic…”. This budget history suggests why the NYS Comptroller did not agree. The 2014-15 External Audit report does make a related change, namely, the “overestimated expenses” has been relabeled as “budgetary savings”. It’s doubtful that the NYS Comptroller would agree with that interpretation.

Actual revenue in 2014-15 was $153.8M so that there was an operating deficit of $326,088. But “expenses” included a transfer of $1.34M to reserves (in addition to the $1.25M proposed in the adopted budget) which suggests an operating surplus ( of about $1M) rather than a deficit. It is also noted that there was a relatively large encumbrance of $995,481. Encumbrances are not included in the budget submitted to the voters (but are immediately added after approval). The final budget for 2015-16 is at least $1M higher than the adopted budget because of this item..

On a somewhat different subject, administrative reports at the October and November BOE meetings indicated that some district resources are being channeled to implementation of Common Core Standards (CCS). This seems somewhat shortsighted when one considers the present status of CCS, and the criticisms that are and have been directed toward these standards. The CCS were created by political entities with minimal input from educators and with major funding from the Gates Foundation, and was supported by various profit-making organizations such as Pearson. CCS was initially adopted by many of the states motivated by the billions of dollars conditionally distributed by the Federal Government. These standards are inextricably associated with the use of standardized annual testing which is widely recognized as being developmentally inappropriate, and led to massive student optouts in Spring, 2015. Major proponents of CCS are largely on the defensive . John King, former Commissioner of Education in NYS, has resigned along with various deputy commissioners. Meryl Tisch, Chairman of the NY Board of Regents, has announced that she will leave the position in March, 2016. Arne Duncan, Secretary of the Dept. of Ed, is leaving as of December, 2015. The Common Core experiment has failed. NYS will, in due time, probably  generate new standards. The NEN BOE should read the tea leaves as relates to the authorization of expenditures in this area.