State Auditors Find Seattle Schools Still Needs Tighter Internal Controls

After years of sloppy bookkeeping and at times lax financial oversight, Seattle Public Schools has improved its internal financial controls, but needs to strengthen them further, auditors from the Washington State Auditor's Office told the school board in a special meeting Wednesday.The meeting focused on findings from a state financial audit of the district scheduled to be released next week.

According to auditors, the largest finding was that the district used $483,000 of a federal dropout prevention grant for activities that were either not allowed under the grant, or unrelated to the purpose of the grant.

Another finding showed that the district had over-counted its Native American student enrollment and collected $6,500 in excess federal funding as a result. This is the fourth year in a row auditors found the district had over-counted its Native American students under the law.