Reply To: School Board Monitors in Lakewood & East Ramapo

Private placement is governed by federal law unless there are more stringent state laws, so unless these laws are changed no moratorium can be made.

As far as auditing the process, the way the system works is that every year the board allocates funding for each special ed. student both public and private in the district and funds are allocated to pay for the service. In order for the private provider to be paid he must submit a bill on a monthly or quarterly basis depending on the contract. The bill must include supporting documentation showing that the child received the service plus payroll documentation for the teaching staff which is then reviewed by the Board of Education, by at least two of their staff prior to payment. Every year the Board of Education of every district in the state, in both NY & NJ are audited by their Attorney General’s office. Prior audits for example, found that students that were suppose to be receiving one teacher and one paraprofessional per student had the same teacher for two students at the same time, this type of error has since been corrected by tightening internal controls. I also assume that the Attorney General’s auditors also compares payroll documentation with actual tax returns to insure the teacher actually received payment, which is why they can’t find any criminal action. These types of errors have been found in both public & private school paper work. Forensic Auditing is needed when you missing documentation and are tracing the money which is not the case in this situation. As part of the audit the auditor makes recommendation as to efficiency so if there was saving to be gained they would have reported it.