Town auditor throws the book at BOE over 2009-10 audit

WINSTED — Town Auditor Vanessa Rossitto made her displeasure fully known with the way the school district handles financial bookkeeping at the Board of Selectmen’s meeting on Monday, Dec. 19.Rossitto is a partner in the auditing firm BlumShapiro of West Hartford.She worked on the audit of the Winchester School District for fiscal year 2009-10.According to Rossitto, the school district had to file 11 extensions with the state in completing the audit, mostly due to the district having serious problems with its accounting practices.“The records that were given to me were terrible,” Rossitto told the selectmen. “They were not organized in a manner that I asked for. The Board of Education had significant trouble closing their year-end ledger and reconciling their ledger. There was no importance placed on this issue by school district management. The importance of financial records and record keeping needs to be recognized by the Board of Education.”Rossitto told the selectmen the Board of Education specifically had trouble showing support and proof for the entries made in its financial journal system.Earlier in November, when the audit results first came out, it showed that approximately $636,000 in expenditures were not properly documented by the school district.At a special Board of Education meeting held on Dec. 6, Superintendent of Schools Thomas Danehy said the school could show proper documentation of where the funds went.Danehy said that in November 2009, the school district received $1.1 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funds.He said some of the grant funds were spent on salary payments to employees.Rossitto did not refer to Danehy’s explanation as she spoke to the selectmen.“We are recommending that the Board of Education develop and implement regular accounting closing procedures for their financial records,” Rossitto said. “Each transaction should be systematically approved and recorded. There should be an adequate regular review of the general ledger reports. Documentation should exist and be retained for each transaction. A person other than the financial ledger preparer should be reviewing the journal entries for accuracies.”Selectman Ken Fracasso, who has been a vocal critic of the Board of Education in the past, told Rossitto the board has shifted the blame for the delay of the audit on BlumShapiro.“The local school district has said, time and time again, that all the audit problems were BlumShapiro’s fault and not the district’s,” Fracasso said.“Obviously that is disturbing to me,” Rossitto told Fracasso. “A year ago, I had a meeting with the town manager at the time, Finance Director Henry Centrella, Superintendent Blaise Salerno and several people who are not here anymore. I knew that they would be using journal entries to take the payroll from the general fund and transfer it to the current fund. I warned them that if you are doing this, you need to be sure to keep backup records for journal entries. It’s certainly not BlumShapiro’s fault for record keeping of the general ledger.”Rossitto said journal entries are usually used as a temporary measure to reconcile transactions and adjust balances.“When I looked at the grant expense details, all I saw was journal entry number 425 for $32,000,” Rossitto said. “I don’t know which employee that is or their salary. Those journal entries have no support. I can’t audit them. In our world, we need to see information that backs up who got paid what amount. The person who made these entries did not do that.”Fracasso asked Rossitto if she was confident that the same problems would not happen with the fiscal 2010-11 audit.“I really can’t say,” Rossitto said. “If I had to guess, I wouldn’t be optimistic.”Recently elected Selectman James DiVita previously served on the Board of Education and said he is surprised with Rossitto’s findings.“I’m getting news here about what you are talking about,” DiVita said. “I’m concerned with solving the problems that we have and to make things better. My basic concern is communication between the town and the Board of Education.”DiVita asked Rossitto if the communication between the town and the Board of Education has improved since the audit.“There has been a lot more communication since the audit with finding everything,” Rossitto said. “We felt that it was not their priority to get the audit done or to give information.”Rossitto added that the school district has already filed for an extension with the state with the fiscal 2010-11 audit.During the public comments portion of the selectmen’s meeting, resident Joe Forster asked the selectmen what the town would do about the audit results.“From what I gather, we asked for information and didn’t get it, and it looks like we’re never going to get it,” Forester said. “What is the town going to do? Are we just going to let it go by? Are we really going to do something or let this continue from year to year?”Mayor Maryann Welcome deferred the questions to Town Manager Dale Martin, who said he would get back to Forster with an answer.Selectman Candy Perez suggested that Forster speak to members of the Board of Education about the situation.

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