Irreconcilable Differences

At 6 p.m., a broken record started playing in the high school. Auditor Joseph Centofanti sang the same tune that’s been belted out for years:

There are irreconcilable differences in the school audit.
There are irreconcilable differences in the school audit.
There are irreconcilable differences in the school audit.

The Board of Education, particularly the accountant on the team, Christine Maisano, wanted to know why the same deficiencies were cited and not remedied, at Monday evening's  joint Finance/Personnel subcommittee meeting.

“I can tell you the big picture, but I don’t know what the causes are,” said Centofanti, of Kostin, Ruffkess & Co. of Farmington, Conn., setting his stage. He conveyed he sticks to the numbers and doesn’t analyze.

Maisano asked what happened with the “scope of review” the auditing firm was supposed to perform last year, and for which the Board approved money, to get to the root of the accounting flaws and fix them.

Centofanti said he never got the documents he requested from the school finance office so he couldn’t do the review.

“We were under the impression that you were working diligently to make things better, to find out tonight you weren’t given the information,” said Maisano.

“I wasn’t,” said Centofanti. He said “most of the problem” with the school’s audits is that its bank and general ledger numbers don’t reconcile because they’re not being balanced in a timely fashion.

“If you don’t do it during the year, you’re in trouble,” he said. “That’s why the findings have been repeated” year after year.

Repeated findings such as the bank reconciliations for the school’s “operating and payroll bank accounts were not reconciled in a regular and timely manner during the year,” according to the FY’09 and FY’10 Federal Single audits. (This and other findings were reportedly cited in prior years’ audits but were not made available.)

So Maisano called for another “scope of review” of the school’s accounting practices to be performed this year in order to resolve the deficiencies.

To help ensure the needed financial papers get to the auditor this time, Board of Ed member Ray Pompano said the request should be emailed to School Superintendent Anthony Serio and to the board.

“It’s very disheartening,” said school board Chair Nick Palladino. “I need to have a number I know is correct so when we as a board go to the Council for (the budget) we know it’s correct. We have to be able to be responsible and accountable. We are liable if money is to disappear. Everyone‘s watching. We‘re the people who are responsible.”

“I think you’re going to find we’ve made some strides in this fiscal year to reconcile the books,” said Serio.

Town Finance Director Tom Thompson, who sat in the Monday meeting, said the school audit is always late. “It’s a bad reflection on the town,” he said. “This has to be done by Dec. 31 this year.” Dec. 31 is the state-mandated drop-dead due date to turn over all financial documentation to be audited.

Centofanti confirmed that the town gets most of its stuff to his firm in September while some school documents don’t get submitted until January.

School board member Tom Hennessey said someone needs to examine the structure of the Finance Department, the books, the software. “I think we need a fresh look,” he said. “In my opinion, there’s something structurally wrong.”

Lathrop came onboard July 2009; Thompson in June 2009. They said they’ve been working together to rectify the accounting problems they inherited. Lathrop said there wasn’t a functioning general ledger when he took office. Last November, he announced he created one and said all revenues and expenses are now being recorded for the first time.

Both money men said the FY’11 audit will be clean.

“We’re going to follow what the auditor lays out,” said Thompson.

“I’m excited about it,” said Lathrop. Asked why, he said, “It’s something that has been dogging the relationship between the board and the town.”

When the audit conversation ended, the Board went into executive session for about three and a half hours to discuss “the Performance of Employees in the Finance Department.”

“My only hope is that we can get to a point where we are fiscally responsible and are making sound accounting decisions,“ Maisano said as she headed home just before 11 p.m.