By Monique Roth
L’Observateur

RESERVE – The St. John the Baptist Parish School Board is expected to once again receive a Certificate of Excellence in Financial Reporting, said Philip Rebowe of CRI CPAs and Advisors.

Rebowe spoke at the Feb. 6 school board meeting about the district’s June 2013 audit.

Felix Boughton, financial director for the school district, presented the board with the audit report at the meeting to be accepted as a public document.

The substantially positive audit did highlight two insufficiencies. The audit revealed two control deficiencies in internal control

over financial report-ing related to the account for capital assets and the documentation of controls for the school board’s third party sales tax collector.

Rebowe said corrective action plans were made and approved, and that the school board’s bond rating should not be negatively affected at all by the audit.

In other matters, the board voted to hire four law firms to aid in the collection of sales taxes. The hired firms are Rainer, Anding, Talbot & Mulhrean; Stutes & Lavergne; Savoie and Savoie; and Patrick Amadee.

At the end of the meeting, when presented with the opportunity to take the floor and discuss his proposal to remove Clarence Triche as president of the board, board member Albert Burl said he was waiting for

an opinion from the ethics board about

open meeting law. The matter is expected to resurface at a later meeting.