By Matthew Sockol
Staff Writer
FREEHOLD TOWNSHIP – Administrators in the Freehold Township K-8 School District have prepared a corrective action plan in response to a finding in an audit of the 2015-16 school year.
The audit was discussed at a Board of Education meeting on Dec. 13.
In an audit of the 2015-16 school year, representatives of the accounting firm Jump, Perry and Company issued a finding concerning the district’s extraordinary aid application.
According to Business Administrator Robert DeVita, extraordinary aid is money that is reimbursed to the district by the state for services that are provided to special education students that cost more than $40,000 per pupil.
According to the audit, compliance with state aid and grants requires intensive services and/or other services on an extraordinary aid application to be specified in the individualized education plan (IEP) for the students that were in place at the time the application was made. The audit found the district did not properly report the student’s services listed on the student’s IEP and/or received on the extraordinary aid application.
The audit stated that the finding was caused by the district not having proper control polices in place in order to prevent reporting of improper information on the application.
According to the corrective action plan, district administrators will implement the proper control policies and retain documentation to support claimed eligible costs by having the business administrator or a designee request all of the information required to calculate the district’s extraordinary aid from the director of educational services.
The director of educational services or a designee will cross-reference the data in IEP Direct and the Genesis Parent Portal to ensure its accuracy for all required services.
The director of educational services will request that each case manager verify the data in IEP Direct as of the date of the request from the business administrator and provide the business administrator a report with the data requested, according to the corrective action plan.
After the discussion, board members voted to accept the audit report and the corrective action plan.