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had no registration or residency information on file for 44 of these students and registration information that was out-of-date and/or incomplete for the remaining 118 students.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 9 of 11

Unless otherwise indicated in this report, samples for testing were selected
based on professional judgment, as it was not the intent to project the results
onto the entire population. Where applicable, information is presented concerning
the value and/or size of the relevant population and the sample selected for
examination.

A written corrective action plan (CAP) that addresses the findings and
recommendations in this report must be prepared and provided to our office within
90 days, pursuant to Section 35 of General Municipal Law, Section 2116-1(3)(c)
of New York State Education Law and Section 170.12 of the Regulations of the
Commissioner of Education. To the extent practicable, implementation of the CAP
must begin by the end of the fiscal year. For more information on preparing and
filing your CAP, please refer to our brochure, Responding to an OSC Audit Report,
which you received with the draft audit report. We encourage the Board to make
the CAP available for public review in the District Clerk’s office.

  Of f ic e of t he New York State Comptroller  7