Audit Objective
Did Capital Region Board of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES) officials properly claim State aid (BOCES aid) on behalf of their component school districts (component districts)?
Audit Period
July 1, 2022 – October 31, 2024
Understanding the Program
While a BOCES cannot levy a tax or earn State aid, BOCES officials prepare BOCES aid claims on behalf of their component districts (local districts that partner with and are supported by the BOCES) and receive BOCES aid payments, which they then distribute to their component districts.
Component and noncomponent districts1 are eligible for BOCES aid on certain expenditures and services (less certain deductions). The three categories of BOCES aid are facilities, services and administrative. BOCES aid is expense-based aid, and each category is calculated differently, depending on the approved expense and the selected aid ratio.
The BOCES received aid totaling $46.9 million for its 23 component districts for the 2023-24 claim year. Refer to Appendix B for details on State aid payments received.
Audit Summary
Although BOCES officials properly claimed BOCES aid totaling $3.8 million for administrative expenditures, officials claimed excess BOCES aid for their component districts for facility rental costs. This occurred because they improperly included total facility rental revenue received by BOCES without deducting portions that were not paid by component districts. As a result, all 23 component districts collectively received almost $2 million more BOCES aid than they were entitled to for approved facilities expenditures.
In addition, officials properly claimed BOCES aid totaling $39.3 million for approved aidable services and reached out to the New York State Education Department (NYSED) in November 2023 to correct an identified error. However, officials did not subsequently reconcile payments from NYSED to their financial application to verify corrections were made and that they received all BOCES aid claimed for approved aidable services during the 2023-24 fiscal year. As a result, two component districts did not receive $29,918 of BOCES aid owed to them for one approved aidable service.
The report includes three recommendations that, if implemented, will improve the BOCES’ aid claiming and reconciliation process. BOCES officials generally agreed with our recommendations and indicated they planned to initiate corrective action.
We conducted this audit pursuant to Article V, Section 1 of the State Constitution and the State Comptroller’s authority as set forth in Article 3 of the New York State General Municipal Law. Our methodology and standards are included in Appendix D.
The BOCES’ Board of Education (Board) has the responsibility to initiate corrective action. A written corrective action plan (CAP) that addresses the findings and recommendations in this report must be prepared and provided to our office within 90 days, pursuant to Section 35 of the New York State General Municipal Law, Section 2116-a (3)(c) of the New York State Education Law and Section 170.12 of the Regulations of the Commissioner of Education. To the extent practicable, implementation of the CAP must begin by the end of the next fiscal year. For more information on preparing and filing your CAP, please refer to our brochure, Responding to an OSC Audit Report, which you received with the draft audit report. The CAP should be posted on BOCES’ website for public review.
1 Noncomponent districts are other participating school districts that use and pay for the costs of services offered by a BOCES through cross-contracts with the BOCES of which they are component districts.