It’s good news for the Osceola County School District and School Board that the forensic audit of nine district construction contracts so far has not turned up any evidence of fraud that auditors would recommend for prosecution.

The good news was presented last week Friday to an audit advisory committee initially and then to the School Board Tuesday. A final report from auditor RSM McGladrey is due in early February.

However, School Board Member Julius Melendez was on point when he said that even though there were no findings of fraud in the “criminal sense,” the audit is pointing out that past record-keeping as it relates to construction contracts “wasn’t up to par” and that certain procedures weren’t adhered to.

As Melendez said, it’s reasonable to expect, given the findings so far, that the final report will show the district has to change certain rules and policies and that better internal controls are needed. According to top district staff, some new procedures have already been put in place, including making sure that there is adequate documentation for construction spending.

Potential problems found at the outset of the audit included the district not following certain policies, a lack of records relating to job advertising and the selection committee’s scoring of potential construction management firms that may not have followed state requirements. Other problems found initially included the lack of records relating to use of prototypes for new schools, lack of documentation in the design phase for projects and not enough oversight of the design phase.

We suspect that some of the problems being found in the audit are the result of a tremendous amount of construction going on due to unprecedented population growth in the county. The slowdown of that growth has allowed the School District and School Board to take a breath and scrutinize past spending on capital projects, in much the same way Osceola County government has been looking at spending on the Narcoossee Road improvement project.

We applaud the current School Board for stepping up and ordering the $199,500 audit and for already taking steps to correct problems, including staff changes. We don’t believe such an audit or any corrective actions would have been undertaken with the previous administration.