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NEVC receives annual audit report
Nevada Daily Mail
The Northeast Vernon County School Board met to go over its independent auditor's report, summarizing his findings about the school.
"A lot of things in this report are geared toward if a patron comes in and wants to see the financial statements, this will explain a lot of things ... these are your financial statements. They come from your books, we don't come in and do some type of wizardry, and create numbers or do anything else," said BG Wolfe, of DSWA Certified Public Accountants. "We take things from your financials and accounting system ... and put it into a report that [the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary education] will like."
Wolfe told the school board NEVC's assets totaled $568,829, and the school has liabilities consisting of an energy loan and capitol lease obligations, amounting to $229,903. Wolfe said the school has a net position figure of $338,526.
"That position figure is kind of similar to what we might call a net worth. It's a little bit different from what you would take to a bank as a net worth calculation based off of a fair market value of your assets," Wolfe said. "If you're a farmer, it's going to be what everything is worth the day you do your financial statement."
Wolfe told the board that the school's general revenue -- revenues not specifically tied to one program -- totaled $1,796,594.
"You had positive change in that position of $63,060 which is good, you want that number to be positive," he said
NEVC's cash on hand was $264,334 and the total balance of liabilities $264,334, Wolfe said.
During his audit presentation to the school board, Wolfe talked about how big of an economic generator a school could be.
For NEVC, "District contributions were $144,000 not $397," he said. "That's money going towards people's retirement right there. That [$397] is a small percentage of a pay going in there. Schools put a lot of people to work, keep a lot of businesses going. And I think you can probably look at a lot of small towns, they lose their school; the town disappears pretty much -- like Metz and some of the others."
Wolfe told the board he did find a couple significant deficiencies.
The school needs to get better at reconciling the bank balance to the general ledger, he said.
"It got out of whack years ago, and we just need to get it back on track. It's been a problem over the last few years, and I'm not trying to lay blame."
Other significant deficiencies, he said, were that a small governmental unit couldn't afford to hire enough people to segregate duties to make sure everything is completed properly. Wolfe said DSWA Certified Public Accountants does over 70 government audits a year and this is a common deficiency found on those audits as well.
"That's in everyone we do," he said.
Wolfe told the board they should create a risk assessment each year.
"It's not a gigantic, lengthy, all-evening type of process. It's something you can probably do in 30 minutes," Wolfe said. "What you need to do is sit down and determine what your risks are and how you will deal with them. Those risks can be many different things. Most people think of fraud, theft, things like that. Other things you can talk about are what's the economy looking like? What's our tax rate look like? Are we losing money? Are we losing people?
"You can look at anything that could be a threat to the district. If you think it is serious enough, I think you'll want to probably adopt a procedure, some way to handle it," he said.
Other school board agenda items included issues that arose during the schools homecoming events and issues with students at the elementary school using Internet or cell phones and personal devices.
High school principal Chris Hudson told the board the night of homecoming, the school had an issue with four-wheelers and students. She said people, "not our kids" were messing with a truck in the parking lot behind the gym.
"It was not our kids doing the four-wheeling; it was not our truck being messed with so it was just turned over to the sheriff."
Elementary principal Kendall Ogburn told the board there had been an issue with his students getting on the Internet with unwanted devices. To counteract this issue, Ogburn said all computers and Internet devices supposed to be connected to the school's Internet would be registered.
"I think Tuesday (Jan. 26) is the deadline," Ogburn said. "So if you're not registered, you're not getting on."