Audit Objective 

Determine whether the Pavilion Central School District (District) claims auditor properly audited claims prior to payment.

Key Findings 

The claims auditor did not properly audit all claims prior to payment. As a result, there was an increased risk that improper or unsupported payments could have been made and may not have been detected and corrected and that District officials paid more for goods and services than necessary. Of the 324 claims we reviewed totaling approximately $1.4 million, the claims auditor should not have approved 173 claims totaling approximately $1.04 million for payment. We identified more than one concern with numerous claims.

• 152 claims totaling more than $1 million did not have documentation to demonstrate that officials complied with the Board-adopted purchasing policy that required the goods and services to be procured through competitive processes.
• 134 claims totaling approximately $444,000 lacked documentation demonstrating that the purchase was properly authorized by an appropriate department head and/or approved by the purchasing agent.
• 50 claims totaling $88,000 lacked information to confirm the District was charged properly.
• 33 claim packets totaling approximately $20,000 lacked information needed to support that the purchases were for a valid District purpose.

Recommendations 

The audit report includes seven recommendations that, if implemented, will improve the effectiveness of the District’s claims audit process.

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