Audit Objective 

Determine whether Wayland-Cohocton Central School District (District) officials identified, reported and implemented needed remediation to reduce lead exposure in potable water outlets. 

Key Findings 

District officials did not properly identify, report or implement needed remediation to reduce lead exposure in potable water outlets as required by New York State (NYS) Public Health Law and Department of Health (DOH) regulations. 

District officials did not sample and test or properly exempt 140 of the 379 (37 percent) water outlets in the District because they did not have a sampling plan to identify all potential outlets for sampling. District officials also did not have a remedial action plan that detailed which outlets were exempt from sampling and how they would be secured, and what remedial actions were planned or enacted. 

Because there is no information on the lead levels of the untested outlets, we were unable to determine whether officials identified and remediated all outlets that would have required it. 

The District’s initial testing results identifying 29 of 181 (16 percent) sampled water outlets with actionable lead levels were never reported to the local health department, and officials did not notify staff, parents and/or guardians of these results in writing, as required. 

Further, the results were not reported to DOH until 240 days after the required deadline, subsequent testing after remediation efforts was not reported, and officials did not post the testing results on the District’s website until 48 weeks past the required deadline. 

Recommendations 

Before this report was finalized, we wrote District officials urging them to develop controls and sampling and remediation plans to ensure compliance with NYS Public Health Law and DOH regulations. This final report includes five recommendations to that effect. A copy of our letter to District officials is included in Appendix A. District officials generally agreed with our recommendations and indicated they plan to initiate corrective action.