JCSD Community,

Today, ABC 27 News released a story commenting on the most recent state audit of the Juniata County School District.  The audit was performed over the last few months and covered from the 2016-2017 through the 2019-2020 school years.  During this time period, the district reported tens of thousands or more data points, to the state, through an automated system called PIMS.  This system then in turn automatically calculates a variety of reimbursement amounts due to the district.  During the period listed above, the school district was using only part of an employee’s day to input data and maintain this very important reporting.  This was seen as inadequate and since early this year the PIMS position has been changed to provide a full-time employee to focus on this very important job.  While we want our reporting to be as accurate as possible, I would like to shed some insight on the level of error involved. The district collected approximately $80,000,000 in state funding over the above-mentioned time period and was in error a total of approximately $400,000 over the same period. This resulted in an error rate of ½ of 1%.  I would also like to reinforce that there were no findings of fraud or malfeasance only small reporting errors that added up over a 4-year time frame. While this is certainly not acceptable, the shortcomings from the past have been resolve moving forward from the 19-20 school year.  

Respectfully,

Dr. Gary Dawson

Superintendent