Follow-Up Audit Report Finds Rockwood Has Made "Tremendous Progress"

Written by Frank Johnson.

Missouri State Auditor Tom Schweich delivered a report to the Rockwood School Board Wednesday that had a remarkably different tone from the last time he visited the district. 

On Feb. 27, Schweich presented an audit that rated the Rockwood as “fair” and made recommendations to address a number of serious issues, including that the district had overpaid Glenn Construction Company by $1.2 million. 

His office conducted the follow-up report due to the large number of adverse findings, the size of the Rockwood School District and the significant interest on the part of citizens.  

Addressing a much smaller crowd at the Rockwood administrative center Wednesday afternoon, Schweich said it was a rare chance for him to deliver a “good news story.”

“The people of Rockwood should be very pleased with the enthusiasm that [the district] had for implementing these recommendations that was then matched by a very well organized process,” he said. 

His follow-up report focused on seven areas where the audit had made recommendations, and Schweich said they had all been implemented or were in progress to be implemented. 

One of the most critical was the board and the district’s handling of construction management. 

The February audit found that Rockwood had “double paid” Glenn Construction, used a change order process for work that should have been bid out and didn’t provide significantly documented reasons for the additional work. 

Additionally, a conflict of interest existed between the management company and former board President Steve Smith, an employee of Glenn Construction. Smith has since resigned. 

Schweich said Rockwood has adopted several policies that address these issues by outlining very specific procedures for going out to bids, such as mandating that fees be spelled out ahead of time and prohibiting work outside of the scope of the original project from being completed by change order. 

The auditor’s presentation also marked a rare moment of unity for a district that recently has been marred by division. 

In his remarks, Schweich thanked Eileen Tyrrell and the citizen’s watchdog group Rockwood Stakeholders for Real Solutions for bringing concerns about the district’s finances to his attention. 

Tyrrell was in attendance and also commended the district for its prompt and thorough attention to the audit’s recommendations. She also expressed a confidence in Rockwood’s Chief Financial Officer, Tim Rooney. 

“This should be an example to all citizens who feel they can’t make a difference,” she said. 

Board President Bill Brown praised the efforts of the district’s staff and said making the changes required “a lot of effort on a lot of people’s parts.” 

He noted that it had been done in an open and transparent manner with the progress chronicled on the Rockwood website. Brown said that the progress had been “extraordinary,” a sentiment backed up Schweich. 

“Since I have been an auditor we have conducted over 300 audits and 42 follow-ups,” he said. “I think this is the model of how a follow up audit should go.”
Brown also thanked Schweich for coming to the district again to make the presentation. 

“We took our medicine in public and we are glad to have our physical in public as well,” Brown said. 

Read the full report for more detail on the findings of the audit and what the district has done to address these findings.