See how it's done!!!

The Littlestown Area School District (LASD) has been handling its accounting in this fashion for as far back as we have examined records, which begins with the commencement of Dr. McConaguy's tenure as superintendent. Bear with the details please, as we hope to enlighten you about the record-keeping methods of the district.

A budget is drawn up every year and presented as a draft in May. The board votes to accept the final budget (which has rarely varied from the draft) in June for the next fiscal year - running from July of that year to June of the following year. We have extracted the descriptions of the line items of the budget for the current school year (2007-2008) in order to give the reader an appreciation of the administration's own explanation of each line item, which was approved by the board without dissent.

Those who examine these FACTS, and especially those who are taxpayers in LASD, should find them alarming. The data presented can all be verified through public documents obtained from the district, namely the LASD General Fund Budget approved at the June regular board meeting and the January and February board packets, which contain the information which corroborates the presentations below.

Line Item 10-1100 of the General Fund (Fund 10, from which all operational disbursements are made), is used to allocate monies for the “Regular Instructional Programs” for most of the teachers - those who teach the core subjects in grades K-12 - and the various supporting functions to those teachers. Foe all major line items, the subcategory “500” is referred to as “Other Purchased Services.” In the case of 10-1100-500, it is further subdivided into eight lower subcategories. Checks written for any of these eight lower subcategories are all included in the Condensed II Board Summary Report for expenditures under designation of 10-1100-500. In the February board packet, that gives the report for January 2008, current expenditures for the month of January are listed as $97,912.85. However, there was only one check for one of the eight subcategories written to that line item in the amount of $50.00. The difference in money actually paid and that claimed is literally astronomical, as you can see. Most of the checks are found in the back of the January board packet, but those occurring after the January regular board meeting are listed first in the back of the February packet under the title “Interim Check Register.”

Although the majority of line items are reported correctly (when compared to the checks),

There were several more that showed much smaller, but nonetheless, disturbing variance with the total of the checks listed against those line items. The details of each line item's description are not provided, but we can gladly do so if requested, for the remaining list of discrepancies discovered in the February report of expenditures (below).

The reader must understand that the board consistently and routinely approves all of these faulty reports without question, despite the presence of accountants and bankers on the board and the fact that the data is compiled well after the month's records are completed. It seems that the district's computer program cannot track the data accurately and has an amazing ability to add correctly on some occasions, while failing miserably on others. Of course, on might easily imagine a different explanation for the inconsistencies.

Taxpayers would be wise to oppose any more tax increases before a forensic audit is performed on the books at LASD. A letter campaign to the Auditor General is in order.

Any person desiring more information to substantiate the material presented here, and/or instruction on how to obtain the material yourself (and how to read it) are welcome to contact The Concerned Citizen.