Newton audit finds qualified opinion on school lunch program, five total findings

NEWTON -- April 9, 2025, Newton's Finance Committee Audit Subcommittee voted unanimously to forward the city's FY2024 federal spending audit to the full Finance Committee, a report covering $25.2 million in federal expenditures that produced five findings and one qualified compliance opinion. The most serious finding involved the city's child nutrition cluster, the federal school lunch and breakfast program, where a centralized data entry failure in September 2024 caused a material overclaim of state reimbursements; the school department has since replaced manual entry with a point-of-sale system called Mosaic, and the state has been contacted about the overclaim. External auditor Jim noted the qualified opinion is "more of a severe reporting instance than for the other programs that we come across," and confirmed the finding will keep Newton classified as a high-risk auditee, requiring audit coverage of at least 40 percent of federal expenditures. A second finding involved Newton's Law Department, which did not perform a required suspension and debarment check on a vendor receiving ARPA funds for carriageway easements, a lapse city Finance staff attributed to a misreading of applicability. The subcommittee also agreed that the FY25 audit special project will examine internal controls and fund tracking for the city's public swimming pool fees, covering Gath Pool, Crystal Lake, and the Newton North indoor pool, following a steep fee increase and significant resident complaints since Gath Pool opened last summer.