City auditor outlines action plan with Brockton Public Schools to shore up procurement and billing

City Auditor Irene Ginopoulos told the Accounts Committee on March 1 that her office has begun weekly reconciliation meetings with Brockton Public Schools (BPS) to address long-running procurement and invoice-control problems that contributed to a budget shortfall at the district.

Ginopoulos said she and her accounts-payable supervisor meet every Friday with the school district’s Director of Strategy and Compliance, Kim Sine, to review stacks of school bills, confirm whether contracts exist in Munis and develop an implementation timeline and training plan so BPS staff understand procurement requirements before invoices are submitted for payment. “I need to have the ability to audit,” she said. “I can show good faith that we’re making progress and trying to get in line, from a legal compliance standpoint at BPS.”

The auditor said the collaboration began after the auditor’s office found gaps in contract documentation and an absence of a full procurement officer at the school department. The draft action plan Gonopoulos described would centralize contract records, create a standard procurement form (now live with BPS staff), and spell out a go‑live date and training schedule for administrative staff across the district. Ginopoulos said the timeline — whether the training and system changes take “one year, two years” — remains to be finalized in the plan.

Councilor Wynn Farwell, praising the district’s legal and compliance lead, said the new arrangement has “brought a certain cohesiveness” and urged the committee to expect cultural change as part of the fix. Ginopoulos agreed the office is moving from case‑by‑case invoice reviews toward enabling BPS to be “self‑sufficient,” so that when a bill reaches the auditor’s office staff can perform routine invoice-to‑purchase‑order checks rather than piecemeal contract searches.

Auditor Ginopoulos said she has been relying on Chapter 44 and municipal procurement rules to justify continuing payments while the district catches up; she also raised the statutory procurement standard commonly cited as “Chapter 30B” (procurement law) when discussing oversight and possible delegation to the city’s chief procurement officer. She said the audit office will pull sample vendor records — for example, the auditor described pulling 20 vendor files and finding contracts for 11 of them in Munis — and alert BPS where contracts are missing.

Committee members asked whether one procurement officer is sufficient for BPS; Ginopoulos and others noted BPS’s multiple departments (special education, transportation, food services, facilities and technology) and discussed models such as one procurement lead with delegated staff or multiple procurement positions. Ginopoulos said the chief procurement officer for the city, Mike Morris, would retain oversight if additional school procurement staff are assigned but could delegate functions to school‑based personnel.

The auditor requested the committee’s support to finalize and secure authorization for the action plan from the relevant authorities and said the plan would be available for committee review once finalized. She emphasized that the work is detailed and iterative and that continuing cooperation between the auditor’s office and BPS is central to resolving the district’s procurement and contract documentation issues.

The Accounts Committee did not take a formal vote on the plan during the meeting; committee members instead asked for periodic updates and clarified that the auditor will continue targeted audits and weekly reviews until BPS is fully compliant.