Audit Objective 

Determine whether the Panama Central School District (District) Board of Education (Board) and District officials purchased goods and services in compliance with the District’s procurement policies. 

Key Findings 

The Board and District officials did not always comply with the District’s procurement policies or New York State General Municipal Law (GML) Section 103, which generally requires purchase contracts that exceed certain thresholds to be competitively bid. In addition, the claims auditor did not perform adequate claims audits. As a result, $1.1 million in purchases (half of the procurements we reviewed) were made without competitive procurement methods. Therefore, the Board, officials and the claims auditor did not help ensure that District funds were used to procure goods and services in a prudent and economical manner, in the best interests of taxpayers and that procurements were not influenced by favoritism, extravagance, corruption or fraud. 

• Certain District officials delegated their procurement responsibilities to other individuals and did not ensure these individuals were adhering to the procurement policies and GML Section 103. 
• The claims auditor also relied on other District officials to perform her job responsibilities and did not ensure District officials complied with the procurement policies and GML Section 103. 

Recommendations 

The audit report includes four recommendations that, if implemented, will improve the District’s procurement practices. 

District officials generally agreed with our findings and indicated they will initiate corrective action.