Finance committee: audit work underway, mySchoolBox payments start, procurement coordinator hired; five contracts slated for approval

The finance committee heard multiple departmental updates on Sept. 16, including a progress report on the district audit, expansion of online payments, new procurement staffing and several contracts the committee will review.

Audit and reporting: The business office reported the FY2024–25 audit open-item list contained 46 items; as of the meeting the district had submitted 31 items, six were under consultant review, three items are part of the on-site audit work and two are state reports not yet available from the state website. The annual financial report and the child nutrition financial report remain in progress; the on-site audit work was scheduled to begin Sept. 29.

Online payments: The district expanded its mySchoolBox payment platform beyond lunch deposits to allow building-level items (field trips, AP exams, locker and parking fees). The committee was told several schools are already using the platform and the district recorded about $7,000 in deposits from mySchoolBox as of Sept. 15. The high school used the platform for Advanced Placement exam fees, the district noted, and AP exam collections are a significant revenue item for the high school.

Procurement and contracts: The district filled its procurement coordinator position (Miss Aronson started Sept. 8) and is centralizing contract review with the business office and the district solicitor. Staff said they will present new procurement processes at the October finance committee meeting. The committee was notified of five contracts to be submitted for approval at the next board meeting: EverDriven Technologies (supplemental transportation), PowerSchool (family information/payments platform integration), Dell Financial Services (lease renewal for servers and hardware), BrainPOP (educational curriculum platform), and the CHA preconstruction agreement (preconstruction cost not to exceed $273,000; staff said they negotiated a fee reduction of roughly 20 percent from the original proposal).

EverDriven description and labor question: Staff described EverDriven as a supplemental transportation vendor whose platform can be used to source drivers for out-of-district or special transportation needs. Committee members asked about union impacts; staff said the contract was reviewed for labor compliance and the district may contract this service so long as it does not reduce the number of district drivers covered by the union.

Payroll, timekeeping and payroll deposits: The business office described a planned rollout of TimeClock Plus for hourly employees, including a phased pilot and testing period; the payroll period is a 14-day pay period with paydays following that period. The business office also reported tax-collection work: staff deposited more than $55 million for August, most of it local revenue (real estate taxes) and rebate items that were accrued back to the prior fiscal year. For the fiscal year to date, staff said local revenue collections represent nearly 79% of the budgeted local revenue while state revenue collections were about 8.3% (staff cautioned that state receipts for July and August are affected by the state budget impasse and some revenue items will be true-backed to the prior fiscal year during audit adjustments).

Next steps: The procurement coordinator will present procurement procedures at the October finance committee; staff will return to the committee with the preventive maintenance proposal and with audit updates as on-site work progresses. The identified contracts will be brought forward for committee and board approval as appropriate.