Team Notes on the 02/26/2024 BHPSNJ Audit Presentation – Big Questions Get Little Time and Explanation

Mar 1, 2024

Berkeley Heights BOE BOE Agendas and Meeting Summaries

After the community discovered that the District submitted the Audit without a public presentation and BOE awareness, we finally had a presentation on the Audit.

Gale Bradford ensured the process was rushed, through the improper use of her position as president – BOE Members only had 16 minutes to ask about a $65 Million Spend.

This is quite funny when you consider that at one point the Business Administrator became defensive when BOE Members indicated that he and the Superintendent had unlimited time to report while BOE Members were on the clock – stating that the reports were provided for the BOE Benefit.

This would only be true if BOE Members got real information and had their questions answered.

One item that came up was a $569,000 withdrawal (or lack thereof) from a cap. reserve line. Three BOE Members asked the same question – as the withdrawal is not evidenced anywhere on the Audit, how do we know it happened? In essence, the Auditor’s response was, “There is no way of really knowing, and that is just how it goes.”

$569,000, and no one appears to know where it went…..during an audit discussion.

The Auditor also could not answer where our surplus came from, and Ms. Akiri had to point out the Health Benefits line – which has become a notoriously suspicious item during budget discussions.

The only contribution made by our Business Administrator was to ensure that some issue that came under food services was the responsibility of decisions made last year – in other words, “don’t blame me”. He remained silent on these other items.

The transportation presentation was also a disappointment, but we’ll get to that in another article.

Here are the clips in connection to these three questions on the Audit: