TRENTON | Some of the state's poorest
school districts spent thousands of dollars on consultants, travel
and sports-related festivities, according to audits of 27 Abbott
districts released last week.
In the Phillipsburg School District,
officials spent $15,085 on banners for the 100th anniversary football
game with archrival Easton.
The district also paid a consultant
$50,000 to get input from the community on a new high school,
the audit showed.
The information was released by
the state Department of Education, which paid auditors to look
at the 2004-05 and 2005-06 school years for Abbott school districts,
finalizing the work required by a 2006 Supreme Court order to
audit all 31 districts. Audits for Camden, Jersey City, Newark
and Paterson were released last year.
The state agency used the findings
to develop new rules for school districts and shape the job description
of the new executive county superintendents.
Education Department officials
said the new safeguards, when they are in place, will make it
much less likely that some of the expenditures questioned in the
audits will occur again.
"More important than some of the
individual expenditures is the fact that some of those audits
identified that in many of those districts they didn't have internal
controls that could catch these things before they happened,"
said Department of Education spokeswoman Kathryn Forsyth.
The new rules give executive county
superintendents the ability to comb through district budgets and
eliminate noninstructional expenditures.
They also crack down on travel,
prohibiting overnight stays if a conference is held within 50
miles of a traveler's home.
Under the new rules, districts
will be prohibited from funding positions that are solely for
public relations. They will also be barred from contracting with
a public relations firm for those reasons.
Forsyth said, in addition, the
Department of Education will continue to monitor the audited districts.
District superintendents said Friday
that the new regulations are helpful to provide parameters, but
they still defend their past spending.
"I didn't think we were out of
line with what we were doing," said Phillipsburg acting Superintendent
George Chando, who did not serve as head of the district during
the years the expenditures took place.
In a written response to the audit,
district officials said the banners were bought for a game aired
nationally by ESPN, which paid a fee for the broadcasting. They
also noted that the football program brought in $72,564 during
the 2004-05 school year and $76,608 during the 2005-06 school
year.
Phillipsburg School District officials
also contended the $50,000 paid to the consultant was not only
to collect data but help the district prepare for a referendum
needed for a new school.
The audits of all 31 Abbott districts
can be found at www.state.nj.us/education/
under the finance section.