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Madrid-Waddington Central criticized for budgeting too much, spending less

Posted 4/20/16

MADRID -- Madrid-Waddington Central School District officials have been criticized by the state comptroller for not creating “reasonable budgets” that reflect the district’s actual spending. In …

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Madrid-Waddington Central criticized for budgeting too much, spending less

Posted

MADRID -- Madrid-Waddington Central School District officials have been criticized by the state comptroller for not creating “reasonable budgets” that reflect the district’s actual spending.

In an audit released today, the office of state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli complained that “Over the last three fiscal years, the district spent almost $4.7 million (11 percent) less than budgeted. This practice led to the accumulation of excess funds in the debt service fund and enabled the district to report year-end unrestricted fund balance at levels that were close to or within legal limits.”

The audit also said that with the movement of “excess funds from the general fund, the District, in effect, circumvented the statutory limit on fund balance and reported reasonable levels. If these excess funds were added back to the general fund, the recalculated unrestricted fund balance would be 15.5 percent of the next year’s appropriation, or almost four times the legal limit.”

The audit report said that district officials “generally agreed with our recommendations and indicated they planned to take corrective action.”