Baldwin board hears three audit reports, approves routine business and program expansions

The Baldwin Union Free School District Board of Education on Oct. 8 heard three audit presentations that reported minimal findings and overall strong controls, approved a package of routine business items and donations, and received updates on expanded dual-enrollment options for high school seniors and a superintendent-led student advisory council.

The claims auditor, Erin Teta of Serenity & Associates, told the board she reviews every vendor disbursement before payment and found a low incidence of exceptions. "Last quarter, we reviewed a total of 1,770 claims, and we only had 1 finding with, like, a 0.007% incident rate," Teta said, later summarizing the annual review: "Out of 6,000 claims reviewed over the entire year, there were only 5 issues," and none were judged inappropriate. Teta thanked the district business office for collaboration.

Christopher Reynolds, a partner at Cullen & Danowski, delivered the external audit and told the board the firm issued an unmodified ("clean") opinion on the district's financial statements. "You have a clean opinion," Reynolds said, and added that the firm proposed four journal entries — a relatively small number compared with some audits — and had no difficulties during the audit. He described a formatting change in reporting for nonmajor governmental funds and noted that the district adopted the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) change on compensated absences for the year.

Internal auditors Lauren Agunzo and Kyle Zaharados of Nawrocki & Smith reviewed internal controls, focusing this year on safety and security (building plans, drills, access systems, incident reporting) and other business processes.…