By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
A petition is circulating to trigger a state audit of the St. Joseph School District.
State Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick confirms a resident of the St. Joseph School District has taken out a petition to gather the signatures needed to force a state audit.
“And, listen, so the thing with these audits; we have a limited staff and there’s literally thousands of political subdivisions in Missouri that we could potentially audit,” Fitzgerald tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post. “And so, our situation is that we have to go where there’s the biggest red flags and the biggest concerns and conduct those audits and that’s a judgment essentially on my part.”
Under Missouri law, if enough qualified voters of a political subdivision request an audit, the Missouri Auditor is required to conduct an audit of that subdivision. The St. Joseph petitioner must gather at least 2,972 signatures from the registered voters of the St. Joseph School District to meet the threshold needed to force a state audit.
Fitzpatrick says those circulating petitions to call for a state audit do not have to give their reasons, but in this case, they cited some recent trends.
“In the case of St. Joe, there are some concerns with the budget of the district and there are some plans to downsize the staff at the school. It’s going to result in a reduction in teaching and administrative positions,” Fitzpatrick says, “which largely seems due to kind of a decline in enrollment. In my understanding, the school district student population has recently dropped below 10,000.”
Some questions about the budget have also surfaced with the school district disclosing that its fund balance has dropped to around 10%, half the district goal of a 20% reserve.
Fitzpatrick says he understands the St. Joseph School District and the Board of Education are working to trim the budget and bring the fund balance up.
“We’re trying to give the board a little runway to go through the process of fixing their budget and see if they can turn it around,” Fitzpatrick says. “And if things progress in a way that’s not acceptable and these signatures continue to be gathered, then we’ll be in there auditing them.”
A recent audit conducted by the Missouri School Board Association linked the St. Joseph School District budget woes to its drop in attendance. Falling attendance has led to falling state revenue.
The St. Joseph School District has stated it hopes to slash $8 million from its budget over the next two years, primarily by reducing staff through attrition.
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