CSBA, TSS team up to ease the pain of Prop. 39 performance audits
Published: September 1, 2006
When California voters approved Proposition 39 in 2000, they made it dramatically easier for school districts to raise money to build and modernize facilities by lowering the threshold for passing some general obligation bonds from a two-thirds vote to 55 percent.
But the new rules came with a significant catch: Districts that pass Proposition 39 bonds are required to conduct two audits each year to ensure that they are spending the bond money wisely and that they are keeping the promises they made to voters during their bond campaigns.
To help districts navigate Proposition 39 regulations and to assure voters that their money is being spent appropriately, CSBA and Total Schools Solutions developed a service to conduct Proposition 39 performance audits. The program is getting rave reviews from clients.
“We hired Total School Solutions last year after several years with an auditor who left the entire [Proposition 39-required citizens] committee and community feeling very disappointed,” said James Cerreta, assistant superintendent of the Novato Unified School District. “That all changed with TSS.”
Cerreta said the TSS auditors were thorough and paid special attention to issues raised by the district’s oversight committee.
“Their background in school operations and finance provided a perspective that really made their report useful. They have a sensitivity for our industry that we weren’t getting from their predecessor,” he said.
A recent analysis of Proposition 39 bond projects by the Orange County Register concluded that some districts have found the new rules challenging. The newspaper found that some districts have been forced to curtail construction projects when bond funds didn’t go as far as planners had hoped. During a bond campaign—months before breaking ground on a given project—it can be difficult to predict exactly how much it will cost to build the proposed new classroom, cafeteria or gymnasium facilities. And after a bond is passed and construction gets under way, the newspaper reported, the number and complexity of construction projects can pose a challenge for some districts trying to document exactly how money was spent.
One district that adhered to its original construction program and conducted price-effective audits that told voters what they needed to know, the Register reported, was the Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District, a CSBA-Total School Solutions client.
According to Placentia-Yorba Linda Superintendent Dennis Smith, his district was ready to break ground on the promised projects—modernizing 21 existing schools and building two new ones, along with 11 playgrounds and 15 parking lots—as soon as voters approved the $102 million Proposition 39 bond. The district got realistic bids from contractors and did its best to avoid change orders and keep costs under control.
The district was also fortunate, Smith said, to find a good service to conduct its Proposition 39 audits. After canvassing a number of large firms, the district found that the CSBA-TSS performance audit service could do the job for about half what the big companies were charging.
“We’ve just finished our third audit,” Smith said. “The audit team from TSS has been great. They spent a week working with us. They gave us detailed analyses and were diligent and hard working.”
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