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Poor Fiscal Management Leaves School District in Technology Buggy Era

A Florida district faces a steep road to straighten out its finances with the help of technology.

(TNS) — Better technology, training and more people could make it easy for the Manatee County school district to keep track of its spending and budgets.

But those things cost money — something in short supply at the district. And that frustrates the district's audit committee, which is charged with keeping an eye on the finances. It even further frustrates the outside company the district hired to help keep an eye on finances.

"It's been of quite a concern to us," Byron Shinn, of Shinn & Co., told the audit committee during a meeting on Monday, in reference to the district's poor information technology. "We're trying to figure out if we want to continue to participate to be your internal audit team."

Shinn, whose company has been working with the district for the past two years, said he's grown increasingly concerned about the district's IT backbone and the lack of technological advances during that time frame, but new Superintendent Diana Greene and her team have helped.

Monday's meeting was the first time the audit committee met in four months, and members were unable to complete the planned 3-hour agenda, but were able to quickly approve an engagement letter with Shinn & Co for the upcoming year for $238,000, a drop from last year's $315,000 contract.

"With regard to the contract, it's my opinion we want to keep Shinn working for another year," audit committee chair Joe Blitzko said, despite Shinn's comments.

At the next meeting, the committee will look to tidy up the contract details, including further discussion on how the hours will be budgeted and spent.

The contract is not final until approved by the school board.

The audit committee discussion focused on continued and systematic issues within the district, which can be mostly traced to a

lack of updated technology, written procedures and systems. One of the problems is that the audit committee has no power to make decisions to move forward with the issues and to dedicate funds and staff.

"That's the kind of decision the board needs to make on some of these things," audit committee member Barbara Vedder said.

In addition to the technology discussions, Shinn provided an update to the 2009 sales tax bond, where money was misspent on various construction projects in the district.

Shinn and other members stressed the misspent money — which totaled more than $3 million — was never "missing" or "stolen" but instead was improperly doled out to other projects and never documented. The issues with the 2009 bond are indicative of the district's wider issues, Shinn said.

When it comes to technology that would help the district keep a better control, the district's past poor fiscal management is partially to blame, said deputy superintendent of operations Don Hall.

"When you're in that mode in trying to get a balanced budget and when we have to cut just to get there, it's very hard to have a discussion about other resources," Hall said.

Board member Dave Miner, who attended the meeting, said the board needs to hear about more of these issues to be able to take action.

"I think there's a recognition by most board members that we're in the horse and buggy age when it comes to technology," Miner said.

Board chair Bob Gause also attended the meeting.

Shinn said he had a one-on-one meeting with Greene because he felt discouraged with the IT backbone preventing change in moving forward.

"She had a very strong 'eye-of-the-tiger' attitude about making sure we have the funds necessary to go through the implementations that's necessary to take care of our classrooms and our students," Shinn said. 

©2015 The Bradenton Herald (Bradenton, Fla.), distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.