As teachers, principals, and administrators prepare to reopen the school doors across the Commonwealth this month, State Auditor Adam Edelen is releasing a checklist of sorts for districts wanting to avoid the kind of special examination Fayette County Public Schools faced in 2014.
Last September, Edelen took a microscope to persistent problems plaguing the county’s school system and released a report critiquing budgeting and financial procedures, unwarranted travel expenses, and other issues. That audit was one of 21 such reports issued by Edelen’s office since 2012 and now spokesperson Stephanie Hoelscher says the auditor has reshaped the findings into a list of recommendations.
"So this is really a lessons learned document from those special exams," she explains. "As we did more and more of those, we found a lot of similar common themes dealing with adequate financial oversight, conflicts of interest, ways that they could better improve wasteful spending, and ways they could improve the protection of confidential student data."
Among the 75 items on Edelen’s to-do list for districts is a suggestion that school boards consider adding hotlines or other methods for employees to blow the whistle on suspicious activities.
11 of the recommendations match those found in the FCPS report.
