Purpose of Audit

The purpose of our audit was to examine the District’s transportation State aid procedures and information technology (IT) controls for the period July 1, 2015 through January 10, 2017.

Background

The Ithaca City School District is located in the City of Ithaca, eight towns in Tompkins County and two towns in Tioga County. The District, which operates 12 schools with approximately 5,300 students, is governed by an elected nine-member Board of Education. Budgeted appropriations for the 2016-17 fiscal year totaled approximately $119 million.

Key Findings

• District officials did not apply for all the transportation State aid to which the District was entitled for bus purchases.
• The District had 10,885 user accounts on its network. Of these, 5,173 (48 percent) had not been used to log on to the network in at least six months.
• The Board has not adopted a comprehensive disaster recovery plan.

Key Recommendations

• District officials should implement procedures to ensure the preparation and submission of transportation State aid documentation and the performance of an annual reconciliation of expected aid to actual aid received.
• Establish procedures to ensure user accounts no longer needed are disabled or removed in a timely manner. At a minimum, procedures should require user access rights to be periodically reviewed to ensure they align with job responsibilities.
• Adopt, distribute and periodically test and update a comprehensive disaster recovery plan that identifies how essential data will be preserved during a disaster and identifies alternate work locations.