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Audit Finds State Overpaid Capital Aid To Clymer School District

CLYMER — Officials with the Clymer Central School District said they don’t expect programs to be impacted after notification by the state Education Department that the district had been overpaid capital aid.

Clymer officials released a statement Thursday regarding a recent state audit that determined the school district was overpaid about $519,000 for seven school years from 2008-15. The state notified district officials that the capital aid has to be returned during the 2016-17 school year

The state Education Department has deducted funds from state aid payments this year to the Clymer School District to make up for the over-payment. Officials said they will be able to “compensate for the loss of this anticipated revenue without mid-year cuts to programs.”

“Due to conservative budgeting this will not impact the budget for 2017-18 that voters approved in May nor will this impact our programming for students in the coming year,” said Bert Lictus, superintendent of Clymer Central School.

The information was shared Wednesday with members of the Clymer and Panama Centralization Feasibility Study Committee — a group that is studying a possible merging of resources between the Clymer and Panama school districts. The groups will meet again on Wednesday, June 14, at Panama Central School and Wednesday, July 12, at Clymer Central School.

The firm Learning Design Associated was approved by both school boards in February to conduct a feasibility study, a requirement by the state in order to continue consolidation and merger talks.

The feasibility study will include information such as current and projected enrollments; current and projected professional staffing plans; current and projected housing/building plans; plans for education programs and curricula; plans for transportation; and fiscal implications of the reorganization like state aid, incentive aid, expenditures and local tax effort.

Meanwhile, Lictus said the over-payment is not rare for school districts across the state.

“This type of correction occurs in districts across the state and we wanted to be up-front with committee members about how this one-time repayment would impact the fund balance as we close out the books on the 2017 school year in June and July,” he said.

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