Oyster River Shool District audit shows room for improvement in school record keeping; policies

DURHAM — An audit of the 2009 budget revealed the Oyster River School District could make some improvements to its record keeping and policies.

Melanson Heath & Company of Nashua recently conducted the audit.

A brief report of findings by the company states the district should improve controls over disbursements. During a sample testing of 25 vendor disbursements, three items did not have documentation or department head approval and supporting vendor invoices could not be located for three others.

"These situations increase the risk that errors or irregularities could occur and go undetected," the report states.

The report also recommends the district should implement regular department internal audits.

Such audits would include reviewing cash receipt monitoring, petty cash handling and student activity records.

"We recommend the district establish a schedule for periodic internal audits of department accounting records," the report states. "This will result in improved oversight and should reduce the risk of errors or irregularities occurring and going undetected."

As part of the internal audit recommendation, the district should also develop a more formal risk assessment, according to the report.

A risk assessment would allow the district to identify where it may be vulnerable to errors or irregularities. The report goes on to say that once these vulnerabilities are identified, the district could then document them, along with a description on how it intends to respond to the risks.

It's also recommended that the district establish a more formal disaster recovery plan for its computer system.

District Business Administrator Blaine Cox said most of the issues raised in the audit are subtle changes the district can address.

He said the district double checks all invoices and the missing invoices cited in the report were likely misplaced during filing.

"We know from our process that there's no way any invoice is missing," he said. "It's just a matter of filing. We need a more foolproof way of filing."

The invoices without department head approval were monthly bills that automatically get paid each month, he said. He said the district would make sure it has department head approval on these bills in the future.

Cox said the district also conducts internal audits, but not at the frequency that auditors are recommending. He said the district would be looking to do internal audits on a more regular basis.

The district also does risk assessment and has a disaster recovery plan, but neither is documented, according to Cox.