During Monday night’s East Ramapo school board meeting, an outside agency, EFPR GROUP, said it found a $31.1 million unrestricted fund balance from its audit of the district’s 2023/2024 budget.

Thomas Smith, with the group, stated, "essentially what created that is that, there were approximately $30 million in expenditures, below budget, that’s really a result of the COVID-19 funds in the special grant funds."

The findings raised questions from stakeholders after the school community had been warned of looming financial problems a year ago.

The district's interim superintendent, Anthony DiCarlo, said best practices were not followed by the last administration.

He vowed to change that.

On Monday night, DiCarlo said, "just because we have this $30 million does not mean that this is a silver bullet and all the issues have gone away from East Ramapo. You're going to see this year in the budget process that we're going to make it transparent, we're going to talk about where the codes are because there's a lot of work to do. Okay? With our facilities, with our academics, and what's best for kids."

News 12 received the following statement from the New York State Education spokesperson JP O’Hare:

"The Department has reviewed the East Ramapo School District’s audited financial statements showing a budget surplus for the 2023-24 school year. While we are pleased to see additional resources available for the public school students of East Ramapo, due to inconsistencies in previous reports that were shared with the Department, we have referred this matter to the Office of the New York State Comptroller. We strongly recommend the District and School Board to take this opportunity to consider how they will responsibly invest this money to benefit the public school students of East Ramapo. The community’s pattern of not adequately investing in education and critical capital needs, combined with what appears to be a lack of fiscal planning and documented best practices, is part and parcel of a decade of issues that have systematically harmed the district’s public school students and placed the district’s finances in a dire situation. Any spending measures that are considered for these funds or any other district funding need to be deliberate, sustainable, and serve all students in the district. In coordination with the fiscal and academic monitors, it is our hope that the Board and District will engage with community stakeholders to address the long-term structural issues and needs that have plagued East Ramapo’s finances and academic programming for more than a decade."

The state comptroller’s office confirms it is reviewing the state Education Department's audit request.