State audit underway for Riverhead School District

Officials from state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli’s office were expected in Riverhead today, Wednesday, to launch an audit of the school district, officials said.
The comptrollers office in 2004 initiated a plan to audit every school district in the state by the end of 2010. And it’s Riverhead’s turn.
The comptroller’s office did conduct a partial audit here in 2005, at the suggestion of residents.  Then-comptroller Alan Hevesi wrote in his findings that Riverhead “is effectively controlling administrative costs.”
The 2005 report recommended some areas of improvement, such as a the lack of written policies,  but concluded that “the auditors found no evidence of wrongdoing or abuse in any of the areas where written policies were lacking.”
The new audit will be more extensive, officials said, although they expressed confidence the district would fare well.
“This is going to be a full audit; the good news is, we are in great shape,” school board president Angela DeVito said at Tuesday night’s school board meeting.
There was no word on when the audit would be completed, although the 2005 audit took just under a year to complete.
The district also is audited annually by an independent CPA firm, Coughlin Fondotos, that it hires. Those audits are filed with the state, officials said.
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