THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, June 26, 1995 TAG: 9506260033
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ELIZABETH THIEL, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE LENGTH: Medium: 65 lines
A City Council member's recent call for a school system audit to find wasted money might not be necessary, school officials said last week.
And attorneys for the city and the school system are debating whether such an audit would be legal.
City Councilman Alan P. Krasnoff suggested the audit last month, citing the need in tight budget times to make sure that every dollar is spent wisely.
``This is the taxpayers' money,'' said Krasnoff, who also was among council members who want to study ways to consolidate duplicate city and school departments.
``It's not an issue of trust,'' he said. ``I would do the same thing with any money that was being appropriated.''
Attorneys for the city and the school system disagree over whether state law grants city officials authority to delve into the schools' affairs.
But city Internal Auditor Jay Poole suggested a couple of options to the council this week, including merging his department with two school system auditors. The new department could conduct checks of both city and school system departments and financial records.
Or, Poole said, the school system could create its own department. The two auditors the system has now are not independent in the strict sense, Poole said, because they report to the accounting department. Internal auditors normally would report directly to the School Board or the superintendent.
Deputy Superintendent W. Randolph Nichols, who will become superintendent in August, said he has his own plan.
Nichols said he intends to convene a five-member committee of administrators and finance experts that will scrutinize school system departments and programs. Those that are not efficient will be improved or thrown out, he said.
``The concept of looking at what an organization does to determine whether it's efficient and effective is a good one, and we buy into it,'' Nichols said. ``We're planning to do it. We have been planning to do it all along.''
It's not known when the council will finish studying the audit proposal.
``All we can hope is that the (school) board and the administration will cooperate, because cooperation is really the key here,'' Krasnoff said.
School Board Chairman Maury B. Brickhouse said the board is eager to cooperate with the City Council.
``I don't think anyone disagrees with the notion that we need to be as efficient as we can be, and therefore there's a place for program audit,'' Brickhouse said.
``I think the entire question is, what is the most efficient way to achieve that, and we believe we can do that as well if not better than any other entity.''
Nichols won the superintendent's job in part because of a series of goals he laid out for the school system, including his idea for efficiency checks.
``This idea actually has been maturing over a period of about 18 months,'' Nichols said. ``With the construction needs of the school system coming in so heavy, we recognized that the city in a very short period of time was going to be at a point where it was not going to have money available for every project,'' so a renewed effort to stretch every dollar was necessary. MEMO: Staff writer Francie Latour contributed to this report. by CNB