Letters to the Editor
What Alden residents should know before voting on the school budget
By Eric Chaffee
Jan 30, 2008, 00:06

On Thursday, Alden voters will go to the polls to vote on a school tax increase, apparently to be funded by bond authorization, if voters allow it.

Recently State auditors found the Alden school system to be seriously mishandling funds. (It should be noted that steps are now being taken to bring the school into compliance with State standards).

The local paper, The Alden Advertiser, reported some of the Auditor's findings in late December in a front-page story. The news article raised my curiosity. I wondered about the 16 vendors mentioned in the article as not having proper contracts and approvals; and I wondered why there wasn't more information of a financial nature, as that is what auditors are always scrutinizing.

So I went online and looked at the Auditors report. Low, and behold, it showed a whopping $2.l million in these 16 contracts had not passed muster with the auditors, for various reasons.

That's a lot of money. It seemed very strange to me that the local paper had quantified the number of vendors, but not the number of dollars.

So I wrote to the Alden Advertiser (twice!) requesting a correction detailing the dollar amount that had been omitted from the article. All I wanted was to share this information with my neighbors. But my request for a correction was ignored. In my view, this lack of interest in reporting significant facts to the voters is inexplicable
and indefensible.

Below is an excerpt from the auditors, and a direct link, so voters can read the entire report for themselves, if they wish. The fact that the mishandling reported in the news article amounts to over $3 million instead of nearly $1 million, as reported, is a glaring omission, in my view. Voters should want to be aware of this serious under-reporting.

Full report here:

schools/alden.htm Audit

EXCERPT FROM THE AUDITORS:

"Also, the Board did not consistently authorize salary, benefits and payments upon separation or enforce contract provisions, and continued to allow payments to be made prior to Board approval.

Twenty employees were paid salaries totaling $941,778, five employees were paid stipends of $24,899 and four employees were paid health reimbursement arrangement (HRA) cash out payments of $15,292, all without contractual authorization, and frequently without prior Board approval as required.

Furthermore, seven employees received merit payments totaling $16,629 without documentation that they had met the terms and conditions of their contracts.

We also found three employees that were paid $34,153 for unused leave time and/or longevity without contractual authorization and a fourth employee that was paid $7,426 pursuant to a settlement agreement that was not authorized by the Board.

Finally, the gross wages on the former Superintendent’s W-2 form were understated by $9,649 due to a payment for unused HRA funds that was not included, as required.

"We also found numerous deficiencies with the 54 claims totaling $101,838 that we reviewed. There was a general lack of documented supervisory approval for purchases, a lack of itemized documentation to support claims, and debit card purchases totaling $1,201 in the 2005-06 fiscal year was not reviewed by the claims auditor.

Further, the claims auditor generally reviewed claims after the checks were already printed.

"The District does not have Board-approved contracts on file for 16 vendors to stipulate services to be provided. These vendors received approximately $2.1 million during the fiscal year. Eleven vendors have no contracts and the remaining five have contracts signed by a District employee but not approved by the Board."

It seems appropriate for Alden voters to ponder these facts before going to the polls on Thursday.

Eric Chaffee
Alden, NY


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