New York Governor George Pataki traveled to Roslyn last Monday morning as the Roslyn Middle School was used as a symbolic background for the signing of The School Fiscal Accountability Act, a piece of legislation recently passed by both houses of the New York State Assembly.

"New Yorkers invest billions of dollars each year to ensure quality education for our children, and they have every right to expect that those dollars will be spent where they belong---in the classroom," Pataki said. "The recent events in school districts on Long Island illustrate the need to strengthen fiscal oversight---including increased auditing, more reviews of fiscal data, school budget and capital project accountability reform, as well as whistleblower protection for school employees who report wrongdoing."

The legislation includes two separate bills. The first bill requires that school board members receive six hours of financial oversight training, while establishing an internal audit mechanism within each school district.

In addition, the new law mandates a competitive Request for Proposal or RFP process for selecting independent auditors every five years. Such auditors would conduct independent audits annually. The bill also requires school boards to create audit committees to work with the auditors and school boards throughout the audit process and to develop a public formal response for the school board to issues raised in the audit.

The second bill requires that all school districts, boards of cooperative educational services (BOCES) and charter schools be audited by the state comptroller at least once prior to 2010. Subsequent state audits would be determined according to a risk assessment established by the comptroller. The comptroller would report his findings to the governor and legislature in December of each year.

By signing the bills into law, Pataki also makes $2.9 million in funding available to conduct the various audits, enabling the Office of State Comptroller to examine financial documents and records, assess the current financial practices of schools to ensure they are consistent with established standards, and determine that school districts have in place adequate protections against fraud, theft or professional misconduct.

Pataki was introduced by Stanley Stern, the school district's board of education president. He praised the governor for not only coming to Roslyn, but also for signing two "awesome pieces of legislation." All the current members of the Roslyn BOE were in attendance for the bill signing, as were members of the Long Island delegation of state senators and assemblyman.

That included State Assemblyman Thomas DiNapoli, a sponsor of the bill in the assembly.

"The internal controls and external audits that this law requires will help school districts exercise good judgment in the expenditure of taxpayers' funds," DiNapoli said. "These provisions will help stop the mismanagement of funds that are appropriated to educate children. These measures will make school finances more accountable and restore taxpayer confidence."

The bill signing was attended not only by politicians and school board members, but also by children from the Building Blocks Day Care Center, which is located on the Roslyn High School campus.