Auditing TUSD

by David Safier

(TASL) I’ve never been one to go after school districts for misspending funds. It tends to be a red herring used by people who are looking for an excuse not to give schools any more money. It seems to me, any multi-million dollar organization is going to have a certain amount of monetary slop built into the system. It’s not only unavoidable, it’s probably necessary. If you cut too close to the bone, people lack the time and the equipment to move beyond the rigid confines of their job descriptions. Being too “cost efficient” can result in the inefficiency of stagnation.

But TUSD really seems to have problems with the way it spends its money, according to people who are more knowledgeable than I. So I’m glad to see the district is reinstating the position of internal auditor it cut when budgets were tight.

Cutting a position whose purpose is to save the district money because the district doesn’t have enough money for the position — that doesn’t sound like it makes a whole lot of sense. The auditor will cost about $100,000. Anyone they hire who can’t find savings worth five times the salary should be fired.

This will be in addition to the recently created audit committee, a group of highly qualified volunteers who have made the district aware of some of its spending problems. One of them, Mark Stegeman, will be on the school board next year. Let’s hope the econ prof brings some fiscal focus to the board. Education is about a lot more than money, but as cash starved as our schools are (have I mentioned lately that Arizona is 49th in the nation in school spending?), they need to stretch every dollar as far as they can.