While acknowledging, as the only "material weakness," the fact that the approved budget for the 2006/07 school year was $2.6 million below the actual expenditures made by the school district during that year, the Levittown School district's annual external audit, completed last fall, praises the district for its fiscal planning and internal controls relative to the accounting and expenditures of funds.

The annual audit, required of all school districts by New York State, noted that the district's fiscal controls involving the oversight of expenditures were consistent with established professional standards, and provided appropriate "authoritative guidance." In its presentation in November to the Board of Education of the annual audit for the 2006/07 school year, the district's external auditors, R.S. Abrams & Co., praised the district for its multiyear budget planning, and credited such planning for both the district's strong financial position and for its ability to correct the over-expenditure errors without adversely affecting district taxpayers.

The bulk of the audit consisted of a series of recommendations, mostly routine, designed to improve fiscal controls, management oversight and overall governance of district finances. These recommendations ranged from computer controls to segregation of duties to cash management, most of which have been implemented during the current school year.

While expressing his appreciation of the general praise contained in the audit, Superintendent of Schools Dr. Herman Sirois said, "Even though the external auditor's report had overall praise for the Levittown School District, and for its multiyear budget planning process in particular, I cannot apologize enough to the citizens of Levittown for the budget errors that were made by my administration. In hindsight, I should not have accepted excuses for delays in monthly reports; I should not have accepted excuses for omissions in these reports when they were finally received; and, even though the district was required by state law to do so, I should not have accepted delays in the implementation of the provisions of the plan of supervision relative to the deficiencies previously identified. I can assure the residents of Levittown that the correction of these errors has been my first and overriding priority throughout this school year. While I am happy to report that, without adversely affecting our children or our taxpayers, all of the errors have been corrected in our current and projected budgets, and that the district has taken measures to assure that these errors do not recur, I recognize that they do not absolve either the district or myself from the responsibility for the errors; and for that I sincerely apologize."