The Westport Board of Selectmen today approved a contract with auditing firm McGladrey LLP to conduct an analysis of the Board of Education’s health insurance fund which is blamed for causing a $2 million shortfall in the school system’s $104 million budget for 2013-14.
In a special 22-minute meeting, the board authorized the analysis subject to the Board of Finance appropriating $15,000 for the study.
First Selectman Jim Marpe said he asked Selectman Helen Garten to oversee the study on behalf of the Board of Selectmen. She said it would be conducted in three phases – reconciliation of the current fiscal year figures, then a review going back to 2011, and finally a review of internal controls and oversight issues and coming up with a final report.
She said a preliminary report on each phase would be done as the work is completed and shared with the Board of Education, Board of Finance, and Board of Selectmen.
“This satisfies the need—and I think it truly is a need—that we have an independent examination of the figures and also of the history here,” Garten said.
“I’m really pleased that the Board of Education and the Board of Finance are working together actively on the same page to get this resolved, and to satisfy the people of Westport that going forward that our numbers are accurate.”
Scott Bassett, a partner in McGladrey, assured the board that the firm was making its own analysis whether, as the town’s longtime outside auditing firm, it could indeed provide an independent examination of the issues.
He said he expected to have word form its compliance staff on Monday.
Marpe noted that no members of the Board of Education were present for the meeting as they were holding their own budget meeting at the Westport Library.
John Pincavage, chair of the Board of Finance said he was “very pleased” with the cooperation his board has been getting from the Board of Education, which has established its own subcommittee to look into the issues. That group met Thursday for the first time. (See WestportNow Jan. 9, 2013)
