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.