THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 21, 1996 TAG: 9601200123
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 16 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: School Bulletin Board
SOURCE: Vanee Vines
LENGTH: Short : 39 lines
The administration will soon send out a request for proposals to companies interested in reviewing ``internal control'' of dollars in the PortsPublic Schools.
On Thursday, School Board member Lawrence W. I'Anson Jr. urged his colleagues to push the administration in that direction.
The board unanimously voted to do so.
When the board has the proposals - and their price tags - it will decide what step to take.
Board members have said that they want to prevent the kind of financial crisis now plaguing the Virginia Beach district, which ran up a $12.1 million deficit last fiscal year.
In August, the Portsmouth board asked Superintendent Richard Trumble to have an independent auditor find out what safeguards were in place to prevent overspending.
Since then, the administration has met with the district's auditors to discuss work that could be done to size up internal control measures and possibly strengthen them.
Under one of the auditor's plans, the extra work would cost $10,000.
The administration recently put additional control measures in place and created an ``Internal Control Department.'' Trumble described the moves in a Jan. 11 memo to the board.
But I'Anson said he felt ``uneasy'' because ``no one from the outside'' had checked things out. by CNB