School Audits Demand Immediate Attention & Action

This week, the Boston Globe ran an article in the NORTH section about how $1.6 million in the Hamilton-Wenham Regional School District (HWRSD) financial accounts was "found" by a newly hired financial accounting firm.

The findings came as little or no surprise to many town officials, taxpayers, parents and especially to Enough Is Enough (EiE), the fiscal watchdog group that was formed three years ago in Hamilton and Wenham to stave off the school district's process of "budgeting by overrides" which resulted in burdening residents of Hamilton and Wenham with two of the highest property tax rates on the North Shore.

According to the article this was the third time in the past year that the HWRSD was found to have significantly more money that had been indicated.

One of the other two cases involved funding that the HWRSD allegedly needed in order to pay for a new boiler for the Cutler School.  Faced with the urgency and need as expressed by the School Committee (SC) that no funds were available, voters, along with support from EiE, overwhelming approved bonding at both Town Meetings to help pay for the project.  Now we are told that the funding was unnecessary and that the district paid $794,000 for the heating system out of existing funds.  The question now is whether the SC will continue to seek the bond approved by the voters FOR THE BOILER and attempt to divert those funds to other projects…such as work on the High School auditorium…a project that was previously rejected by the voters.

According to the Globe article, SC chairman Alexa McGloughan praised the work of the new financial accounting firm, stating "I think we have finally cracked the code on how to demystify school accounting" and that she felt that new accounting practices would lead to better efficiency.

Enough Is Enough has responded by saying it wishes that Ms. McGloughan felt the same way about the thorough and lengthy (400 pages) and complete OPERATIONAL AUDIT REPORT that was completed last year after having been overwhelmingly approved by voters in both towns.  That report clearly supported a previous report (The Blue Ribbon Report) that found that the HWRSD costs nearly $2 million more per year than comparable school districts.

The difference with the OPERATIONAL AUDIT is that it clearly paved the way for correction of the school cost discrepancies with specific recommendations.  Unfortunately, the SC and district have failed to implement the audit's numerous COST-SAVING recommendations and initiatives, choosing instead to implement the few COST ENHANCING initiatives from the report.

This failure to improve the efficiency of our school district, after being handed a $90k Operational Audit roadmap, is unacceptable.  Combine that unwillingness to act on the Operational Audit with the recent financial audit which uncovered $1.6 million, and according to EiE, "that suggests better efficiency is not, as suggested within the article, a primary concern of the School Committee".

"You're going to create a better budget going forward if you know where you're coming from," McGloughan stated.

I believe that should be a naturally true statement and hope that the SC will not continue to ignore the cost reducing recommendations of the Operational Audit when preparing their budget.  It's been more than a year since the Operational Audit was unveiled.  It's time to implement many of the recommendations that until now have been ignored... ignored similarly to the financial accounting that  recently uncovered the $1.6 million.

QUESTION: Does anyone else wonder much we paid to have the new accounting firm straighten out the books and in so doing find the $1.6 million?  Talk around town is that the firm spent more than 200 hours on the project.