Schools hire new auditor
By Phyllis Moore
Published in News on July 20, 2016 1:46 PM
Wayne County Public Schools will have a new auditor doing its books and is converting to BoardDocs, an online platform for documents, policies and procedures.
The Board of Education approved both at a recent meeting.
For over a year, there has been debate over auditing services for the district.
Carr, Riggs Ingram had handled the role and was in the third year of the latest three-year contract when the topic came up for discussion at a June 2015 board meeting.
Board member Rick Pridgen said the firm had worked with the district at least as long as he had been on the school board, since 2002.
Several others suggested it was "unheard of" for the same auditor to be in place for an extended amount of time.
With the hiring of a new superintendent and finance officer, the timing seemed right to explore other options.
"Every three to five years, you should at least go out to bid to get different costs," Superintendent Michael Dunsmore told the finance committee at its recent meeting. "It's also not a bad idea to get a different set of eyes on the books."
Finance Chairman Arnold Flowers agreed, taking it a step further.
"Carr, Riggs and Ingram were the auditors when we had people stealing from our system and they didn't catch it, under their watch," he said. "They gave us some reasoning behind that. I accepted that but still, that happened."
"I think a good policy is to look at it at least every five years," said Michael Hayes, finance officer. He said the policy in the Wake County school system, where he previously worked, had been to change auditors every five years.
The finance committee solicited bids, with four received. Carr, Riggs Ingram's bid came in highest, at $49,260, with two firms, Nunn, Brashear and Uzzell from Goldsboro and Dixon Hughes Goodman from Winston-Salem, each submitting $41,000 bids.
Rives and Associates produced the lowest bid, at $39,740, including travel expenses.
Hayes said he had worked with the Raleigh-based firm and found it to be very professional. Plus, he told the committee, their area of expertise was school systems.
"We talked to the two lowest bidders who happened to be larger regional firms, who do a lot of school systems," Hayes told the board Monday night. "Rives and Associates and Dixon Hughes Goodman introduced themselves to the finance committee and we had a discussion of their capabilities and so forth.
"Our recommendation is to go with Rives and Associates out of Raleigh."
Flowers made a motion to accept the recommendation. Board member Dwight Cannon seconded it, and the motion passed unanimously.
"This is something we've been needing to do for a long time," Pridgen said.
The board also approved a $21,000 cloud-based program to manage documents and streamline information.
From meeting agendas to a link to replace bulky manuals, BoardDocs would make web-based access more efficient.
It also will save the district a "tremendous amount" of paper, said Dunsmore, familiar with the program from his previous role as superintendent in Tyrrell County.
Pridgen made the motion to invest in the BoardDocs program.
"I have been wanting it for a long time, a long time -- 10 years," he said.