An internal audit presented Sept. 30 to the Lake County School Board identified opportunities to tighten inventory controls, improve forecasting and ordering procedures, and to better track digital‑resource utilization across the district.

Auditors said they used a risk‑based sampling approach and visited five school sites selected for high purchasing volume; the firm and district staff acknowledged the sample included four higher‑risk schools and one site the auditors described as an exemplar. The auditors reported inconsistent inventory storage and checkout practices across the sampled sites; surplus inventory at sampled schools ranged from about 10% to 29%, and one school ordered roughly twice the materials needed for a semester course because staff had not considered whether one required set could serve both semesters.

Auditors recommended the district strengthen forecasting by coordinating textbook orders with finalized master schedules and school course enrollments, implement or extend staggered ordering to allow pausing orders when needed, and encourage closer coordination between textbook managers and instructors about required materials. Management’s action plan included coordinating course‑offerings confirmation with school leadership and scheduling and an estimated completion date listed as August 2026.

The audit also flagged gaps in utilization reporting for digital instructional materials. Auditors noted some vendors provide dashboards that show logins and usage but that the district does not currently have a formalized process to monitor utilization across all adopted digital products. The audit recommended leveraging existing systems — the district’s Destiny inventory system for consumables and the CatchOn tool for digital‑license utilization — and creating a routine review to identify trends, potential bulk‑purchasing savings, and unused licenses.

The audit team included a teacher survey as background information. The auditors reported a low completion rate for the teacher survey (about 8% of recipients) and cautioned that the district should treat those results as informational rather than statistically representative. Despite the low response, the audit noted that many respondents reported purchasing supplemental materials using personal funds and that district leaders plan to reissue or broaden outreach to improve response rates if they want stronger statistical evidence.

District staff told the board that textbook‑manager duties are not a standalone position: among the district’s textbook managers, 22 serve as assistant principals, nine are instructional coaches, five are deans and eight are media specialists. Staff and board members discussed the heavy workload on textbook managers and the tradeoffs the district faces between placing early orders (to ensure materials arrive and are barcoded before school starts) and waiting for final enrollment figures to avoid surplus.

Board members and staff described the audit as a constructive review rather than a punitive one; district leaders said they will use the audit’s recommendations, the Destiny system and CatchOn where appropriate, and increased coordination with school leaders to reduce surplus and improve inventory transparency.