Palmerton Area School District’s administration said Wednesday night it is working to take corrective action on two findings of noncompliance and internal control deficiencies related to transportation operations and bus driver requirements.

The audit, covering the period from July 1, 2015, through June 30, 2019, found that inaccurate transportation data reported to the Department of Education led to the district being overpaid $42,377 in regular transportation reimbursements and $70,840 in supplemental transportation reimbursements over the four-year period. It also found that the district did not adequately maintain and monitor bus driver qualifications and clearances.

“I am in no way saying that people who are either in the current administration or prior administrators in the district intentionally did things wrong,” Superintendent Dr. Jodi Frankelli said during Wednesday night’s board workshop. “Now that we know better, we have to do better, and that’s what this is really about.”

Palmerton, Frankelli said, is putting a corrective action plan in place. The plan, which has to be school board approved, will be up for vote in two weeks at the Nov. 16 meeting.

In response to the transportation reimbursement overpayment, Frankelli said the district now has more than one person looking over transportation data and is working with George’s Transportation to ensure they have implemented updated reporting software that really calculates the mileage a lot better than what it did previously.

“Another item is that nonpublic school student reporting forms were not on file in the district,” Frankelli said. “So what was happening was that you have the nonpublic school and the transportation department, with the district being in the middle. The district kind of removed itself from that process and was allowing those two organizations to work together. The auditors have made it clear that you can’t be hands off.”

Palmerton is now getting the required forms directly and reviewing them.

Frankelli said Palmerton also took immediate action on getting the required paperwork on file for George’s Transportation bus drivers.

“We are in no way saying there were drivers who were not qualified to do so because that is not the case,” Frankelli said. “George’s was monitoring all of that, but the district had removed itself from that process, which it can’t do.”

Frankelli said George’s now uses a Google form so the district knows who is driving each bus every day.

“These are just best practices and again, I don’t think it was the fault of anyone,” Frankelli said. “It’s just that the procedures happened year after year and no one ever said they were wrong. So once we found out that they were incorrect, we addressed them immediately.”