LR school-audit bill clears panel
State agency running district is expected to request review
The state’s Division of Legislative Audit would be authorized to hire two auditors to conduct an audit of the Little Rock School District under legislation that cleared a committee Thursday.
The Legislature’s Joint Budget Committee recommended that the House and Senate approve Senate Bill 552 by Sen. Jimmy Hickey, R-Texarkana. The bill goes to the Senate for further action.
The legislation would allow the audit division to hire a staff auditor and an associate auditor and spend $214,119 for salary and benefit costs in the fiscal year starting July 1.
In response to a question from Sen. Joyce Elliott, D-Little Rock, Hickey, co-chairman of the Joint Legislative Auditing Committee, said he proposed the bill in anticipation of a request from Education Commissioner Tony Wood to conduct an audit of the district, which has been taken over by the state Department of Education because six of its schools have been found to be in academic distress.
On Jan. 28, the state Board of Education voted 5-4 to take control of the Little Rock School District, immediately removing the seven elected School Board members and placing Superintendent Dexter Suggs under the direction of Wood.
The 24,800-student district, the state’s largest, is now the second district in Pulaski County to be under state control. The Pulaski County Special School District has been
operating under state control after being declared in financial distress, with a state-appointed superintendent and no elected school board since June 2011.
Legislative Auditor Roger Norman said Thursday that Wood “told me that we were going to be asked to do LRSD.”
The Little Rock district has been using a private firm to conduct its audit. The Division of Legislative Audit will conduct an audit for this current school year and will conduct the audit going forward, Department of Education spokesman Kimberly Friedman said afterward.
Elliott said she was surprised to learn about the audit request during the Joint Budget Committee’s meeting on Thursday.
“I don’t know what it means. I don’t even know if we need to spend money to do that because Little Rock has had professional audits for all these years, so that’s something I want to check into,” she said.
Hickey said the division couldn’t do an audit of the Little Rock School District with its existing staff members.
“I anticipate that [$214,119] isn’t even enough [to pay for the audit] because you know how large [the district] is,” Hickey said.
Suggs said he welcomes the audit.
In other action, the Joint Budget Committee approved an amendment to House Bill 1043 that would prohibit the state Board of Barber Examiners from denying an application for the establishment of a new barber college on the basis of geographic proximity to an existing barber college in the fiscal year starting July 1.
The amendment also would prohibit the board from establishing any rules, regulations or policies without the prior review and consent of the General Assembly in the next fiscal year. HB1043 is the board’s appropriation for fiscal year 2016.
State Rep. Fred Love, D-Little Rock, and Elliott proposed the amendment adopted by the budget committee.
Afterward, Elliott said she is convinced that “there needs to be some review of [the board’s] rules because that has not been done and that has not been happening.”
“I think the Legislature just needs to have some oversight in some of the practices that I see coming from there,” she said.
For example, Elliott said a Little Rock man was told that he may not locate a barber school in Conway within the proximity of another barber school, and that “some kind of ruling hasn’t happened in other areas.”
A representative from the board could not be reached for comment at its office on Thursday afternoon.