Priority one for new Iowa City board: fix the finances

Writing this on Tuesday, I didn't yet know who won in the Iowa City school board election.

Voters were lucky to have a lot of candidates to choose from - 10 people running for five seats on the board. But with only one incumbent running to keep her spot, that means no matter who won, we're left with a young board facing a steep learning curve.

And no matter what their personal campaign priorities, those new board members' first item on the agenda should be putting the district's financial house in order.

A recent school board finance committee report unveiled a shameful lack of fiscal responsibility in the district. It revealed that for at least seven years running, auditors have identified troubling shortcomings in Iowa City Schools' fiscal processes - often the same shortcomings, uncorrected. Auditors flagged the district's improper segregation of duties over payroll processes and cash disbursement, over the handling of cash receipts and student activity funds.

They flagged the district's lack of any formal policy for approving new vendors. Seven years in a row.

A summary of auditors' findings from the past seven years shows nearly two dozen other concerns, some of them fleeting. It's what audits are for: uncovering weaknesses in the system.

It's the fact that for seven years in a row, district officials were told their financial operations were structurally deficient - and we're talking about major deficiencies - and they didn't fix them. That's administrative recklessness, at best.

I don't need to tell you what can happen when there are too few checks on the people writing the checks. Whether the district actually was bled dry by unscrupulous employees is beside the point.

For seven years, they knowingly left the cash drawer unguarded.

And we only learned about it after this summer's one-two punch to the district's credibility in matters of money.

First, when a year-end balance sheet uncovered a $2 million bookkeeping error in the district's budget. Shortly after, a $25,000 Internal Revenue Service fine for late payment on payroll taxes.

It's little consolation that the error was in the district's favor, the IRS payment only a day late.

Both incidents raise troubling concerns about how the district handles our money.

Add to that the record - seven years of external audits pinpointing failures in the district's financial processes - and you've got more than a bad fiscal year. You've got some explaining to do.

No. 1 on this new council's agenda: Get that explanation.

No. 2: Hold your district staff accountable.

Comments: (319) 339-3154; jennifer.hemmingsen@sourcemedia.net