Schools stuck by New World switch

School districts in Whitman County are now struggling to prepare their budgets for next year because the county’s transition to New World software has delayed school financial statements by three months.

From Colton to Tekoa, school business managers have been unable to view their district’s end-of-month financial statements since the software was installed in early April.

This has also delayed reporting the monthly figures to school boards and state education officials.

“It’s very difficult now at this time when we are trying to prepare our budget for next year and we don’t know what our ending fund balance is,” said Frankie Swinney, business manager for the Palouse and Garfield school districts.

Financial transactions for each school are run through the county treasurer’s office, which is two and a half months into switching the county’s new software system.

A problem with the new software system has delayed the treasurer’s office in providing each school district with its monthly finance information.

Without accurate, up-to-date information on each of the district’s finances, Swinney said preparing the 2011-2012 budget is rough. Also, she has not been able to provide the school boards with its end-of-the-month budget report since April.

“It’s really frustrating,” Swinney said. “When we do get it, we are going to have to go back and do each month.”

Chris Nelson, Whitman County’s information technology director, said the New World system could not produce reports in the format required by the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction.

Nearly six years and two-thirds of a million dollars after it purchased the New World system, Whitman County put the accounting software into use April 1.

Nelson said they then realized the software could not produce the school reports.

County and New World staff have been working since then to develop a program that would create the reports with accurate data. Nelson said they are currently working on the fifth version of the report, and it should soon be ready to meet the schools’ needs.

“It’s a really complicated report, so it just plain takes time to work through,” said Nelson.

Colfax district business manager Reece Jenkin said the delay is slowing down the district’s ability to generate a budget for the 2011-2012 school year.

“It’s frustrating, but it’s not a huge, huge issue,” he told the Gazette. Because writing the budget relies on comparing monthly data from 2011 to years prior, Jenkin said his preparation of the budget is stunted without those figures.

“It’s not that I can’t do it, I’d just like to know what those actuals [figures] are,” Jenkin said.

Educational Service District, which serves districts in this part of the state, has sent a letter to County Treasurer Bob Lothspeich asking that school districts be allowed to view their bank records.

“I sent a letter to Whitman County explaining to Lothspeich this is a problem for the districts and they need the reports,” said Mike Dunn, ESD 101 superintendent.

Lothspeich was attending a state treasurers’ conference this week and was unavailable for comment.

“The districts are getting their financial information a couple of months late. Because of that, people are having to estimate on the missing finances,” Dunn said.

ESD 101 monthly receives each district’s financial information and then sends it on to the state Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction.

“We can’t proceed to future months until the months in arrears are turned in,” Dunn said.

Pullman executive director of support services Dan Hornfelt said his district will forge ahead on its budget without the up-to-date figures, but added that it makes the planning difficult.

“We have no other choice but to calculate our position based on our information,” Hornfelt said. He pointed out that having the current figures is a “clearer picture.”