Northumberland schools’ interim finance director cites bookkeeping backlog, tightens procurement after review finds widespread miscoding and nonessential spend

The interim school finance director for Northumberland County told the Board of Supervisors on Oct. 29 that her office has found widespread miscoding of account lines, a backlog of unpaid invoices and years of purchases charged to inappropriate categories, and has put stronger procurement and card controls in place.

The director, speaking in her 12th day on the job, said staff have onboarded two employees, reconciled petty cash, filed quarterly tax returns and begun bank reconciliations dating back to November 2024. Using recommendations from a recent forensic audit, she said her team has processed roughly $300,000 in past-due invoices and expects another roughly $40,000 to be paid this week.

"We found invoices tucked in piles and in inboxes that were never coded or paid," the director said. "We are rejecting charges that were charged to the wrong account line and putting controls back into place." She said the office is now requiring purchase orders to include item descriptions, pricing justification and an account-line check before approval.

Why it matters: The office reported more than $1 million in combined Amazon- and Visa-card spending across several years, for items ranging from batteries and classroom supplies to meals and gift cards. The director told supervisors those purchases included items that should not have been paid from instructional or capital lines and said school spending previously operated with minimal line-item controls.

The board approved two budget transfers during the meeting. The supervisors voted to transfer $55,690 from a third-quarter appropriation into a second-quarter line to pay the governor’s school payment and to add $194 to a T-shirt/D.A.R.E. account. The board also approved moving funds between categories so districtwide paper purchases can be paid from the correct admin/facilities line; multiple amounts were discussed during debate and the transcript does not specify a single final figure for the movement beyond the board’s approval of a transfer for districtwide supplies.

The director said Title I funds, largely intended for salaries and related benefits, had been treated as a de facto slush fund in some school accounts. "The Title I instruction line became a slush fund for whatever the school wanted to do with no accountability," she said. She told the board the school office is tightening controls on Title I purchases and will require incentive plans and documented justification for purchases funded by those dollars.

Office changes underway include: rewriting the central procurement manual, consolidating telecommunications vendors to eliminate duplicate fax charges, closing and reissuing credit cards to a smaller set of authorized users, implementing centralized bulk purchasing to reduce duplicate Amazon orders, and executing journal entries to fix mischarged lines ahead of state reporting and the county audit.

Board members asked for access to the close-of-year reports the independent accountant (UHY) produced; the director said a meeting is scheduled with UHY and county staff to obtain and review those closing documents. The director also said she will present a shared-services proposal with county staff to identify potential cost savings across operations.

What the board did: The board voted to transfer $55,690 to cover the governor’s school payment and approved a separate category transfer to allow a districtwide bulk purchase to be charged to the proper admin/facilities account. The transcript records motions, seconds and affirmative votes on both items.

Next steps: The director said she will finish bank reconciliations, run monthly closes for August–October, complete corrective journal entries, finalize the procurement manual and prepare files for the county audit. She also recommended continued oversight of Title I spending and centralized purchasing to prevent future miscoding and nonessential purchases.

"The drunken-sailor time is over," the director told the board, referring to a prior period of permissive spending. "We're asking for accountability for these dollars, which belong to every taxpaying citizen in this county."