Superintendent's Blog: Visitors from Jefferson City

Superintendent's Blog: Visitors from Jefferson City

I don't believe that this is random.  I believe that the district is trying to minimize this.  I will check into the state law that supposedly calls for random audits.  I believe this district has something to worry about if the auditor does a thorough audit.  Please email the auditor and tell them about your experiences with this district.


Visitors from Jefferson City
Beginning this month, our district is participating in an audit conducted by the state. 
Until recently, the state auditor only conducted audits when state government was 
petitioned by citizens or when there was a concern that merited an evaluation. 
A change in the state law in recent years is resulting in a number of school 
districts throughout Missouri being randomly selected for an audit. This 
winter, Lee's Summit R-7 was among several Missouri school districts 
randomly selected for the comprehensive state review. State officials 
have told us that the audit may take several months and that we may
 not receive the auditor's report until well into 2014.
This is definitely not the first time that our district's financial practices 
have been reviewed by outside organizations. Annually, our school 
district participates in an evaluation performed by an outside auditing
 firm. These comprehensive audits, which are conducted in accordance 
with state and federal regulations, also include on-site visits and a
 review of all aspects of the school district's business operations.
A community team is involved in the review of this outside audit, 
making it an even more open and transparent process. The R-7 
Audit Review Committee studies the outside-organization audit, which 
has consistently included praise for our district's financial procedures
 and compliance with state and federal laws and regulations related to
 school district budgets. The R-7 Audit Committee includes community members, 
Board of Education members and R-7 staff. The committee members are Tom Jackson,
 Diane Seif, Gene Brixey, Fred Gardner, Chris Storms, Ron Baker, Dick Bartow, 
Dr. David McGehee, Dr. Tom Kurucz and Judy Hedrick.
As part of the state's random audit of Lee's Summit R-7, state 
employees will spend approximately four days each week in
 our district's offices and schools for up to four or five months. 
Fortunately, our school district is not directly paying for the 
audit since it will be costly. At least two auditors are traveling
 from their office in Jefferson City each week to be on site in our
 schools, and the audit and all travel expenses are being funded 
by the State of Missouri.        The state audit will include interviews,
 surveys and field work as well as analysis of district records. The
 final audit will be presented to our Board of Education after the auditor's 
office completes the report.

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