APS has just finished a financial audit by an independent auditor.
The purpose of the audit was to determine the APS' net worth and to establish a "rating" for the purposes of selling bonds. When APS sells some of the $316M dollars of bonds that were recently approved by voters; the interest paid on the bonds varies with APS bond rating. If APS can maintain a high rating, taxpayers pay less interest on the money they borrow to underwrite education.
It is in the public interest for the administration of the APS to keep APS' bond rating high, in order to save tax dollars. If the bond rating is allowed to fall, through administrative incompetence or corruption, the public interest has been betrayed.
The auditor, the firm Moss Adams, found the following;
- The audit was almost a year late.
- APS over reported it's worth by $53M (nearly 10%).
- APS is in need of "qualified financial personnel".
- "material weaknesses in the district's internal financial controls".
- errors in previous years that required "adjustment." (correction)
- APS' problems are due to "poor record keeping".
- APS' records are "riddled with errors".
Lou Anne Boothe, the APS administrator, and the district's only certified accountant, who blew the whistle on the corruption and incompetence in the district's financial department, is still on paid administrative leave while a "personnel investigation" is conducted. No explanation why some months after she was put on leave; the investigation isn't complete. (more corruption and/or incompetence?)
According to the paper, "APS officials do not expect the audit to dent its strong bond rating."
Really? And why not, exactly?
This latest incompetence and corruption in the APS could very well affect our bond rating. If you were buying bonds, would you ignore this information?
Board Member Marty Esquivel said, "The most important thing that we have learned out of it is,
we need to have better accountability from the professionals in charge." (emphasis added)
Esquivel has proposed a full scale accountability audit of the APS leadership and administration.
So far, not one public figure has stood in support of an audit.
The audit is opposed by the media, and by those in the leadership of the APS who do not want their corruption and incompetence exposed by an honest and impartial audit.
2 comments:
FYI
Licensure Hearing Now Set for Jan.
The licensure hearing for an Albuquerque Public Schools administrator over the changing of a Rio Grande High student's grade last May has been rescheduled for Jan. 9-11.
Last week, a state District Court judge ordered that Elsy Fierro's hearing must remain open to the public, despite hearing officer G.T.S. Khalsa's determination that it could violate the student's federal right to privacy.
Fierro, who ordered the student's grade be changed over the objection of the teacher and principal, is the head of the Rio Grande cluster's elementary and middle schools, but no longer oversees Rio Grande High as an outcome of the initial investigation.
Earlier this week, the state Public Education Department issued a subpoena to APS for the student's academic records, district spokesman Rigo Chavez said.
The student's father, former Albuquerque school board member Miguel Acosta, has threatened to sue if his son's records are made public.
The CPA from Chicago that Acting Accounting Director Ted Osbourne and Tom Savage hired walked out last Friday because there was no one at APS that had any accounting knowledge who could help him with the 2007 audit.
Ted Osbourne held a meeting today 11/19/07 with all finance staff and indicated that Leadership wanted to start immediately in laying off lower paid individuals in order to hire highly paid CPAs. Why do they think any CPA would risk his/her license by working with such a mismanaged organization.
The CFO position has been open since August and pays $104,000 per year, yet according to Tom Savage, no one has applied.
Can't they get the hint. Change has to start at the top, not the bottom. So long as Savage is in charge of Finance, no one with a license to risk would become involved with APS Finance.
-- APS Employee
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