At the Feb. 16 meeting of the Windsor Unified School District (WUSD) Board of Trustees, there is a relatively brief agenda, focused almost entirely on audits, some financial and some about facilities.
Director of Businesses Services Lois Standring will have a busy evening as she is introducing all the items.
First up, the board will consider accepting the independent audit for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2020 completed by Christy White, Inc. The audit report will be presented by John Whitehouse, a partner at Christy White and will include the most significant parts of the audit including, the audit found insufficient controls over student body activities at four of the school sites tested. This is an extremely common finding in school audits, and has been cited in past audits as well.
The next item on the agenda follows directly from the first, as the board then needs to approve the recommended corrective actions to the above issue, which will then be sent to the Sonoma County Office of Education for approval.
The district’s proposed correction is that it set a policy for clearing stale dated checks and make sure that the school sites follow the policy when reconciling their bank accounts. They will work with each school site to make sure that deposits are made in a timely manner by asking them to calendar all fundraisers and follow up with teachers and others to submit their proceeds immediately following an event, and will also begin the practice of collecting ASB minutes to ensure that they are being recorded.
The next set of “audits” are related to the district’s facilities. According to the agenda, “as a result of the Williams settlement, the Office of Public School Construction (OPSC) developed the Facility Inspection Tool (FIT) as a ranking and scoring system to evaluate the conditions of public schools. School districts are required to complete the FIT annually and to use the results as a guide for site upkeep and repair. The results of the FIT are included in each site’s School Accountability Report Card (SARC) which is made available to the public each year.”
The accompanying report contains the actual Facility Inspection Tool completed during site tours. Each area/room of the campus is evaluated in 15 areas and it is determined which of the below rankings applies to the area: 1) No Deficiency; 2) A Deficiency; and 3) An Extreme Deficiency.
The resulting scores are compiled to come up with an overall rating for the school. For the 2019-20 school year the district has six schools with a “Good” rating and one with an “Exemplary” rating.
The final item on the agenda is approval for a purchase of a walk-in freezer for Mattie Washburn. The cost of the freezer is $49,371.54. This cost will be offset over the first few years by a related reduction in employee hours due to the addition of the freezer. These hours relate to the internal transport and ordering of the items for Mattie from elsewhere in the District. The total savings each year will be approximately $14,000. This is a one-time cost that will be funded from unspent lottery dollars, according to the agenda.
While not specifically agendized, it is expected that the Superintendent Jeremy Decker will be addressing the state’s new guidelines for school reopening and the plans for the district, and this will likely be addressed in public comment as well.
The meeting will start at 6 p.m. and will be held via Zoom and streamed live to YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTC8qiAOAh8Qd77KSW7c8wA. Public comments should be sent to [email protected] by 4 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 16.
