OXFORD – Auditors have given SAD 17 a thumbs up on the school district’s budget and spending.

District Business Manager Cathy Fanjoy presented the information to the board of directors Monday.

Fanjoy said Tuesday that the district, to comply with state law, hired a certified public accounting firm to verify the accuracy of the district’s $34 million budget.

The audit was done by random sampling.

Student activity funds at schools were verified as well and no problems were found.

The year-end balance for SAD 17 is $775,881, according to school data.

In order to improve internal control and financial practices, auditors in an opinion letter suggested the school look at collection of cash from vending machines and documentation of time for employees paid by federal grant funds.

For this budget cycle, Fanjoy said principals and department heads filed a budget for the upcoming year. Officials are in the process of reviewing each budget, weeding out unnecessary items, before it goes to budget committee.

However, the district has not found out how much of the budget the state will subsidize – a major factor in the process. Fanjoy said she usually gets that information by the end of January, and suspects the reason for the holdup is because of the governor’s school consolidation proposal.