School System Discusses FY 2014, 2015 Audit Status

The Stephens County school system is still considering whether to bring in an outside firm to get caught up with its audits quicker.

Tuesday, the Board of Education discussed the status of its Fiscal Year 2014 and Fiscal Year 2015 audits.

Last month, the school board instructed Superintendent Bryan Dorsey to find out what other school systems similar to Stephens County were paying for private firms to conduct audits.

Dorsey said he found a couple of examples and found they were each paying about $20,000 more at least than Stephens County.

“We are currently spending about $5,000 to $7,000 on our audit and that comes completely out of Title funds, federal money,” said Dorsey. “When we looked at these other school systems, along with Title funds, they were spending an additional $20,000 to $30,000 to get it done by private groups.”

Currently, the school system needs to still have its Fiscal Year 2014 audit completed by the state, before it can move into Fiscal Year 2015, which would be the year for which the school board is considering a private audit firm.

Dorsey said they are hopeful that the Fiscal Year 2014 audit will be ready in the near future.

“I think she now has everything,” said Dorsey. “We are just waiting on them to actually perform the audit. I think the last I heard is that they were hopeful that the folks would review it in the next 30 to 60 days.”

Dorsey went on to say that they are then hopeful that the state will be able to move through the school system’s Fiscal Year 2015 audit in a quicker timeframe.

However, he said the state is not sure when it would get to the Fiscal Year 2015 audit.

Board of Education member Rod Moore is the one who proposed looking into a private firm.

He said it is important that the school system get its audits caught up as quickly as possible to have the most up-to-date, accurate information it can.

“It would give us clear numbers a lot sooner than we could get them waiting on the state,” said Moore. “I think it is important.”

The Board of Education took no action on this on Tuesday, deciding to wait until the Fiscal Year 2014 audit is completed by the state.