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Appendix B: Audit Methodology and Standards We conducted this audit pursuant to Article V, Section 1 of the State Constitution and the State Comptroller’s authority as set forth in Article 3 of the New York State General Municipal Law. To achieve the audit objective4 and obtain valid audit evidence, our audit procedures included the following: ll We interviewed District officials and reviewed policies, procedures and job descriptions to gain an understanding of the procedures related to tuition payments for resident students attending charter schools or receiving special education services from other public or private schools. ll We reviewed tuition invoices from the 2017-18 school year and determined that the District had 843 students enrolled in charter schools or other public and private schools. ll We reviewed tuition payments totaling $504,000 for a judgmental sample of 37 students to ensure tuition charges were accurate. We recalculated tuition charges using SED approved rates and reviewed attendance and transportation records to verify dates of attendance and FTE calculations. For our sample, we primarily selected students who attended school for less than a full-year because the risk of calculation errors are greater for these students. Of the 843 students, 119 attended charter schools or other public and private schools for less than a full-year. Our sample included 32 of these students. Using a random number generator, we also selected five students for our sample from the population of 724 students who attended school the full school year. ll We reviewed residency documentation on file at the District for a sample of 211 students to ensure tuition payments were supported. We randomly selected one student from each school (26 students) and 161 students using a random number generator. We also selected newly enrolled (23 students) and one student with a break in attendance. We verified residency for these students by reviewing documents contained in residency packets on file at the District. For any students with insufficient documentation on file, we asked the District to obtain updated residency information from the charter schools. We reviewed IEPs and special education meeting records to verify the residency for students receiving special education services from private or other public schools. We conducted this performance audit in accordance with GAGAS (generally accepted government auditing standards). Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objective. We believe that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objective. 4 We also issued a separate audit report, Lackawanna City School District – Contractual Services (2019M-23). 6 Of f ic e of t he New York State Comptroller