Audit Delay Tagged to Faulty School Accounting

The school administration is holding up the municipal audit. "Again." And the Board of Finance sounded none too pleased or tolerant Wednesday night when town Finance Director Tom Thompson gave them the particulars.

"This is my fourth audit [since becoming mayor in 2007] and once again the Board of Education is holding us up," said Mayor April Capone Almon, who chairs the finance board. She made clear that she was referring to school administrators not the elected representatives.

"Why do we keep filing extensions for the Board of Education?" said Noreen Clough, finance board member. "And the same things come out of the audit."

The person whom the board said it needed most at its meeting -- and whom Thompson said he personally invited to explain what's going on -- didn't show up: school business manager Jason Lathrop.

All financial documents are due to the auditor by Dec. 31, 2010, per state law. When it became clear last December that the some of the records Lathrop submitted showed discrepancies, Capone Almon granted a one-month extension. That extension runs out in 11 days and the mayor said that's it.

"This time I'm not going to give [another] extension," she told the board.

"I don't blame you. I'm fed up, too," said Thompson. He said the town submitted its records on time to the auditor, Joseph Centofanti of Kostin Ruffkess in Farmington, who's being paid $75,350, a $2,200 hike from last year.

The holdup is due to two discrepancies, Thompson said. Lathrop submitted records to the auditor showing $1.25 million in Board of Ed contributions to retirees for fiscal year '10. The year before, the amount was $202,000. Thompson said Centofanti is puzzled why the amount has jumped so high and the explanation Lathrop offered was confusing.

Also, Lathrop's payroll records do not reconcile with the bank's, said Thompson.

"The same material weaknesses over and over," Capone Almon said.

"I just find it disturbing that their retirement is that far off," said finance board member Richard DePalma.

Clough said auditors have cited the school department for years on seven weaknesses, including the absence of a general ledger and not reconciling some of its accounts. "The problem is we have no control [over the school finances]. That's our biggest frustration," she said.

Last November, Lathrop told the school board that he had just created a ledger that lists all revenues and expenditures for fiscal year '09-'10, something the administration had not previously done.

School board members Christine Maisano and Tia DePalma attended the Wednesday Board of Finance meeting. Both said they were frustrated because despite repeated requests to Lathrop, they don't get the information they ask for.

"I ask for updated financials at every board meeting," said Maisano, but the last time she said she got anything was last October.

Lathrop "always defers" when he's asked why he hadn't produced requested financial documents, said Tia DePalma. "Like he deferred coming tonight to the board."

Richard DePalma said when an audit is late it makes it harder to write the new fiscal year budget because "you can't see how last year ended ... can't get an exact understanding of how we finished."

Lathrop delivered the proposed $45-million FY'12 school budget to the Board of Education last week.