Southtowns Record

Lackawanna City School District - Tuition (2019M-59)

Government
Lackawanna City School District
Posted by publisher
Jun 7, 2019
Kind
State audit
Topics
Audits and oversight, Budget and taxes

Publisher's summary

School districts are required to pay tuition for resident students attending charter schools or receiving special education services from other public or private schools. We recalculated tuition costs and full-time equivalents (FTEs) using attendance records for charter school students and special education students' individualized education programs (IEPs) to verify that the District was billed for the correct services and frequency. We found that tuition was incorrectly calculated for nine students. The District was overbilled $5,300 for eight charter school students. The billing school used the correct rate for those students but used the incorrect FTE to calculate the tuition, resulting in overbilling. Additionally, the District was underbilled by a private school $900 for one special education student. The billing school used the incorrect rate when calculating tuition. We also found that the District did not have adequate and up-to-date residency information to support tuition charges totaling $2.5 million for 162 students (77 percent) attending charter schools and other public or private schools. The District had no registration or residency information on file for 44 of these students and registration information that was out-of-date and/or incomplete for the remaining 118 students.

Original document

Text · page 6 of 11

Assistant Superintendent told us that the District is in the process of developing
new procedures for reviewing tuition invoices.

Without sufficient documentation to verify residency, District officials cannot be
sure tuition payments are correct. As a result, the District could end up paying
tuition for another school district’s students.

What Do We Recommend?
The Board and District officials should:

  1. Adopt written policies and procedures for reviewing tuition invoices prior to
  payment.

District officials should:

  2. Review tuition invoices to ensure charges are calculated correctly and
  based on SED rates, attendance records and IEPs as appropriate.

  3. Work with the billing schools to address and resolve identified billing errors
  in a timely manner.

  4. Request updated proof of residency periodically from the charter schools
  and verify the District is properly billed.

The claims auditor should:

  5. Properly audit and approve claims prior to payment.

4  Of f ic e of t he New York State Comptroller