TCSD Audit Findings Released
The audit's Executive Summary states that "the District’s basic financial statements were presented fairly, in all material respects, in accordance with prescribed financial reporting standards", and that there were 21 findings of which six represented "material weaknesses." Those weaknesses are as follows:
Finding No. 1: The District continued to experience a decline in its financial condition during the 2007-08 fiscal year. The General Fund unreserved fund balance was a deficit $1,405,151.22 and total fund balance was a deficit $1,136,989.86 at June 30, 2008.
Finding No. 2: Improvements are needed in District procedures for ensuring the accuracy and completeness of the District’s accounting records and annual financial report.
Finding No. 3: Enhancements could be made in the Board’s budgetary process and the presentation of required monthly financial statements to the Board.
Finding No. 4: The District reconciled its bank and investment accounts to manually-maintained records; however, these records were not maintained by reporting fund and had not been reconciled to balances recorded on the District’s general ledger.
Finding No. 5: District procedures need to be enhanced to ensure Capital Outlay and Debt Service funds are used for projects included in its approved project priority list.
Finding No. 6: The District used capital outlay millage moneys, totaling $78,649, for unallowable purposes.
The full report can be found at http://www.myflorida.com/audgen/pages/pdf_files/2009-171.pdf.
It was noted at the Joint Legislative Auditing Committee on Monday by the AG's office that the financial situation has declined every year for the last eight years.....uh the Oscar Howard era. Dyal stated that the literacy rate was low in the district and the committee asked him if that was true why was he cutting reading coaches and related personnel! LOL!!!!
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He's cutting reading coaches? Hmmm....
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Can't afford reading coaches. Can afford football coaches.
Go figure.
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Maybe he can decrease the number of reading coaches in the district and rotate the few between the seven schools.
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Sounds reasonable. Just looks bad.
I don't think the original plan for reading coaches was for them to be around forever, anyway.
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How is cutting reading coaches when litercy is that low reasonable?Oh yeah,IT LOOKS REALLY BAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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I'm no expert on reading coaches, but as I said I don't think they were originally intended to be permanent.
My understanding is that reading coaches don't so much coach students directly as they coach teachers on how to teach students to read. Once a reading coach has been at a school a few years and has taught best practices to the teachers there, maybe they can scale back a little and be shared between two schools.
But I absolutely agree that it looks bad, even if it does make sense.
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Maybe the new football coach can double as a reading coach in one of his 3 planning periods!
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Maybe parents should help their children learn the basics before sending them to school and while they are in school. Since some parents have a "it's the school's job to teach my child," they will start out behind and continue to fall behind because parents aren't doing their job. Education begins in the home-what are you teaching your children?
TCC: You are right about reading coaches. They train the teachers on best practices, but neither the teachers nor the reading coaches can help children who are 2-3 grades behind in reading. No Child Left Behind states every child should be on grade level by 2012. What Einstein thought that was a grand idea? Only in a perfect world... and this isn't it.
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what does a reading coach really do?
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Did anyoone attend the workshop at the admin complex tonight? Very interesting. Dyal discussed the audit report findings (operational, FTE, and transportation) and it seems they are still in the dark about how much money Taylor County is going to get from the State. A few members of the audience asked more questions than the board members. Of course, that did not surprise me. Everything sounds like they are on the "right" track, but at what expense? Sounds like they may be losing a lot of good employees after the school year ends. Dyal has proposed eliminating, moving, or modifying 30+ positions. Ironically, I observed a number of administrators/principals at the meeting who appeared so arrogant (it seems they are forgetting they too are on ANNUAL contract. Thompson, Clayton, and Scott all sat there as if they are untouchable. Well, they must be! Thompson's school FINALLY made a decent school grade this past year. Had the high school been a Title 1 school like Steinhatchee, the elementary school, and the primary school, he might have been canned a long time ago. The state wants to make it easy to get rid of poor performing teachers, but what about poor performing administrators?!!! Ivey went to Steinhatchee after a few years of the elementary school not making annual yearly progress. Rumor is she wants to return to the elementary school as a teacher! If some of these 25-30 year teachers RETIRE, it would free up some money and save new teacher jobs. I also found it interesting that Dyal would tell the audience the staffing plan for next year that he presented to the legislative committee is only a work in process because he doesn't know how factual that document is since he doesn't know how much money the county will receive from the stimulus package. Is he lying to the legislative committee or to the citizens and employees he has sworn to represent? And why wasn't Howard forced to answer for the financial crisis this district is in since it happened under his watch?
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I wasn't there, but I found the minutes from the meeting on the district's web site.
The minutes indicate that the meeting started at 6:00 PM and adjourned at 7:40 PM, which is a long meeting. However, they don't indicate that any questions were asked by anyone--not the board, not employees, not citizens.
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At a recent board meeting, Dyal said he is making all of these cuts because he did not want to be under the thumb of the department of education. Well, we voted you in, we can vote you out! You had a lot of support from district employees and their families and if this is how you repay their support, SHAME ON YOU!
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In today's Tallahassee Democrat:
State to take over Jefferson County School District's weak finances
By TaMaryn Waters
Democrat Staff Writer
An emergency conference call is slated for Wednesday regarding the financial state of the Jefferson County School District, according to the Florida Department of Education.
The school district has notified the state that it is in a “financial emergency,” and the state’s education Commissioner Eric Smith is going to recommend that the state take over the district’s financial oversight.
The district is in a financial emergency since its operating at a deficit, said Tom Butler, spokesman for the Florida Department of Education.
One has to wonder if Taylor County is not next in line?
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I'd be very surprised. The state has already been down on a regular basis monitoring the district, and it's hard to screw up big under that kind of scrutiny.
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Any news on what stupendous or stuporous items the school board and dyal completed tonight? I could not attend, I had a colonic scheduled.
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I didn't see anything exciting in the agenda posted on their website...
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Well it took Dyal and Company a few days to get with the local mullet wrapper to put together a story-reponse. What the story left out is that Dyal bemoaned the lack of literate citizens in the county and a member of the legislative committee asked him if that was so, why was he cutting all of the literact/reading coaches. LOL!!!
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Dyal has sent on a number of occasions that Taylor County declared financial emergency. If this is so, why has the State not come in and taken over like Jefferson County? So it stands to reason, Taylor county did not declare financial emergency and as Dyal said in a budget workshop, he is doing all this to "get out from under DOE's thumb," at the cost of cutting 30 positions in the upcoming school year. What next?
At last night's meeting, Mr. Dennis brought up the FADSS report and the closing of Steinhatchee School. McManus said she has the numbers to support not closing it and Dennis said he has asked for the information in writing and has yet to get the information. He never got his info from Howard when he asked so I wonder if he will get this.
One good thing that happened was Whiddon asked about the transfer of an aide from the elementary school to Steinhatchee. The ESE Director did not have a clue if the aide at the elementary school was transferred to another position or was a position created to keep that employee. She said the HR director told her to turn in the request like she did and ironically, he was not there to answer the question. Whiddon's concern is that with the district cutting 30 or so positions, how could they justify creating an aide position? Just so you know, the question was never answered at the meeting, just a lot of smoke and mirrors.
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I'm not sure about what the difference is between what Taylor went through and what Jefferson is going through. Here's info on Jefferson's "takeover":
http://www.fldoe.org/board/meetings/2009_04_22/agenda.asp
It sounds a lot like what happened in Taylor. In fact, some of the same people the state sent to Taylor are being sent to Jefferson.
I'm glad a board member finally asked for justification of the decision to keep Steinhatchee open. I'll be curious to see the district's numbers, in writing, showing why they don't think that school loses money. FADSS says it does, and my inclination is to believe FADSS. But if they made some sort of error calculating the projected savings, then let the district show it.
Or, if the decision to keep Steinhatchee open is a political decision rather than a financial one, let's just acknowledge that. I understand that decisions can't always be made based solely on numbers. Maybe the district feels that the school is an asset to the community, even if it does lose money. But if that's the case, then the district needs to say so--but it shouldn't try to convince us that the school doesn't cost more to operate than the revenue it brings in.
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