Skelton concedes there was no budget violation

Jean Skelton, who has been investigating the annual audit report for Hot Springs County School District No. 1, provided an update on her findings last week during the April18 meeting of the school board.

Skelton has been specifically interested in the budget violation which was “due to a variance of general vs. instructional support” as noted in the board minutes for the Dec. 15, 2022, meeting.

At last Tuesday’s regular board meeting, Skelton reported that this amount of money was wrongly categorized by the district’s auditor during their most recent audit. She said that these funds had been placed in instructional support rather than central support where they belonged, and that the funds were spent as intended.

Concerned taxpayer Angel Anderson called upon her work experience at the University of Missouri, where she “oversaw a lot of budgets.” She said “One thing that we were constantly having to do was justify every single thing we spent money on. You guys have so much money that you’re just freely handing out.”

She then called for the firing of the accounting firm responsible for the school’s audit for their “unprofessionalism,” in reference to an error made during the audit. She also wanted to draw attention to the construction project of building three houses for school staff that is projected to cost $1.2 million. Anderson felt this project was unnecessary, and said that school staff could just find a house in Thermopolis that was already built.