Kentucky Auditor Adam Edelen released 75 recommendations Tuesday to help school districts become more efficient in their use of taxpayer dollars.
Kentucky Auditor Adam Edelen
Some of the recommendations were developed based on findings during the auditor's office examinations of 21 school districts since 2012.
In Fayette County last September, a special examination by Edelen detailed 10 key findings, including weaknesses in budgeting and financial-management processes, administrative and management salary increases that outpaced those of other district employees, excessive and unnecessary travel, misuse of a trust fund, and conflicts of interest.
Kyna Koch, the district's senior director of administrative services, was hired to resolve problems mentioned in Edelen's report. She has given the school board regular written updates showing when initiatives to fix the problems are completed.
Some recommendations in Tuesday's report match recommendations identified in the Fayette County Public Schools report, Edelen spokeswoman Stephenie Hoelscher said.
"The recommendations in today's report are for all districts and may have been a result of findings in other reports in addition to the one we did on FCPS," she said.
In a news release, Edelen said, "Many of the lessons learned in those exams are contained in this report and should aid school boards, superintendents and district management in providing significant financial oversight and strong internal controls to maximize the fiscal operations of their districts."
The report released Tuesday recommends ways to provide adequate financial oversight, prevent potential conflicts of interest, prevent wasteful spending and improve the protection of confidential student data.
Tuesday's report recommended that board members have training about district budgets. Fayette has done that since Edelen's special examination.
The report also calls for boards to establish processes for district employees to submit concerns to the board about questionable activities.
In Fayette County, options for a hotline have been reviewed.
The report should be found at the link below, but it had been removed early Wednesday morning:
http://apps.auditor.ky.gov/Public/Audit_Reports/Archive/2015SchoolDistrictRecommendations.pdf.
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