March 31, 2005
Bridgewater
Raynham
Easton
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Massachusetts
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Bridgewater-Raynham Schools
Massachusetts
USA
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Joseph Gillis Jr.
You can do something!
As the person who made the statement, what I said was “What is the deal with B-R estimating Investment Income at $40k? To accomplish that, based on a review of overnight fund rates, would require an average daily balance of $3 million each and every day. Given that Bridgewater has just come through a difficult financial process – discovery of a math error in accounting – and that the fix uncovered several long dormant accounts that made certain cash available, shouldn’t B-R endeavor to do the same? Should B-R review the basis for what is a significant amount of cash?
While this comment was made in March 2004, monthly trial balance sheets were not provided until January 2005; and only in February 2005 was a fund breakdown provided to substantiate the basis for what at times was a $15M cash position.
I have since had conversations with Asst. Superintendent George Guasconi, and based on those discussions I trust he will agree with me that this issue should be put to rest. We have agreed that (1) the reports should have been provided in a more timely manner to me; (2) that consistent with my initial inquiry, B-R often has a sizable amount of money that is classified as cash; (3) cash should not be confused with available funds as much of this money is held to pay an upcoming expense (especially with many school construction projects); (4) from a review of the two sets of reports, there is nothing unusual about the characterizations of the funds nor do they point to a large sum of money available to balance the budget.
