Fountain Hills Unified School District Can't Account for Millions of Dollars
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Fountain Hills Unified School District Can't Account for Millions of Dollars
In May of this year, the Arizona Auditor General reported the Fountain Hills Unified School District is NOT in compliance with financial reporting requirements. Their 2022 audit shows more than 50 individual deficiencies!
Click here for AZ Auditor General Reports
The district had more than $2.8 million in bookkeeping errors. Their balance sheets do not reconcile. Assets are simply missing. The district lacks documentation for background investigations and fingerprint clearance cards.
The audit found a 100% failure rate to properly secure written quotes for certain contracts. There is a lack of due diligence and documentation on cooperative purchase contracts. There was a violation of Conflict of Interest laws resulting in the district doing business with a vendor where a district employee had a substantial interest in the business.
For purchases, the district lacks receipts, made late payments incurring late fees, and made several questionable purchases. These errors become less surprising when the audit shows the district did not properly train employees in purchase card usage.
The list of errors found in a routine annual audit is incredible. It reflects chaos in every aspect of school district business from student attendance reporting to information technology security.
Due to this incredibly alarming AZ Auditor General Report and other improprieties, there are now multiple complaints about the conduct by Fountain Hills Unified School District filed with the AZ Attorney General's office and I will be watching the results of those investigations very closely.
Public Education is our state's largest expenditure and only through transparency and accountability will the public trust in that institution be upheld.
State Representative Joseph Chaplik (LD-3)
Fountain Hills, Scottsdale, Rio Verde, Cave Creek, Carefree, Anthem
