NEISD Audits Flag $549.48 Lunch and Unpaid Booster Taxes
Auditors for San Antonio’s North East Independent School District found that a $549.48 steakhouse lunch put a MacArthur High School account in the red and that a Madison High School booster club owed years of unpaid sales taxes.
The district’s Board of Trustees received the findings earlier this year. NEISD’s internal audit department updated trustees at an August board meeting, where few details about the completed reviews were discussed publicly.
The reviews examined three different sets of accounts. At MacArthur, auditors looked at money collected and spent by the school.
At Madison, they examined the finances of a parent-run booster club that operates separately from NEISD’s general operating budget. The third review focused on purchases made by the district’s library services department.
KSAT Investigates obtained the audits after requesting records from NEISD, San Antonio’s second-largest school district.
The district declined to release a separate audit of Johnson High School’s former band director. District officials asked the Texas Attorney General for permission to withhold that review.
MacArthur’s Steakhouse Lunch and Fundraisers
The MacArthur audit traced the charge to a culinary arts field trip to Ruth’sChris Steak House, where the bill covered lunch for four students and their teacher. The audit listed the dishes served to the group, including lamb chops, ribeye, New York strip, filet mignon with blackened scallops and another filet mignon entrée.
The school charged the meal to its culinary arts account. Auditors found that the account had too little money from fundraising and other available funds to cover the bill, so the charge left it with a negative balance.
Aubrey Chancellor, NEISD’s executive director of communications, said the instructor was a first-year teacher who was unfamiliar with district rules. Chancellor said the teacher reimbursed the meal cost.
“They spent hours at the restaurant. They were looking at food preparation in the back. Operations in the front,” Chancellor said. “The difference here is that a meal was had and that shouldn’t have taken place.”
The audit also examined what happened to money collected at the campus. Auditors found that some of it went weeks without deposit.
They also found compliance problems in 87% of fundraisers reviewed. Those problems included missing paperwork that would have shown whether the school’s fundraising activities had received approval before they took place.
Madison’s Booster Club Finances
The director of Madison’s Agriscience Magnet Programrequested an audit of the school’sFuture Farmers of America booster club. A parent had also filed a complaint.
The review examined the club’s spending, the records its officers kept and its standing with the state office that collects sales taxes.
The booster club’s former treasurer refused to turn over financial documentation from the previous school year. The refusal delayed the review more than two months before auditors could examine the club’s finances.
The club had drawn up a proposed budget for the 2024 to 2025 school year. Auditors found no evidence that members had voted on or approved it.
When auditors compared the proposal with what the club actually spent, they found that spending was more than twice the proposed amount.
The review found that the club was no longer in good standing with the Texas Comptroller’s Officeand owed four years of sales taxes. The$2,700 delinquency was paid in early March.
The review also tested whether the club’s financial reports could be reconciled. Auditors could accurately reconcile one of six treasurer’s reports they examined.
They noted missing deposit records, receipt books and revenue reports, gaps that made it difficult to account for the club’s financial activity.
“Bad bookkeeping, sloppy paperwork. Somebody who didn’t want to cooperate once they left,” Chancellor said.
Library Services Spending Limits
The library services audit found at least one compliance issue in 55% of purchasing card transactions reviewed.
Auditors separately examined how much the department spent on food and drinks for day-to-day use during the school year. They found that library services spent approximately $2,200, nearly seven times the$315 annual spending limit the audit identified for those purchases.
General Fund Deficit and Oversight
The audits were released as NEISD faced a general fund deficit of about $19 million this fall. Chancellor was asked whether the deficit made questionable spending more concerning.
“I would agree with that,” Chancellor said. “I would also say it’s always important, regardless of deficit or not, to make sure that every dollar is being spent efficiently.”
Chancellor said NEISD is among the roughly 5% of school districts with their own internal audit department.
Northside Independent School District, the area’s largest school district, also has its own internal audit department. Northside said several positions in that department remain on hold while it searches for a new audit director.
Its previous director retired in 2023.
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