For the past five years, school districts across the state have been under the microscope. The New York State Comptroller's Office has been auditing the districts, looking at their finances in response to massive fraud found in a New York school district in 2005.

Comptroller Tom DiNapoli said his office has found $880 million in excess funds, missed cost savings and questionable payments over the past five years through 733 school district and BOCES program audits from August 2005 through February 2010.

"We all know we're going through very tough fiscal times,” said DiNapoli. “It's not a time to waste resources."

DiNapoli said auditors found $615 million that districts set unnecessarily aside at taxpayers' expense. The rest of the money, $265 million, includes things like missed Medicaid payments to improper contract payments. He also highlighted that $18 million in fraud was found in 19 school districts.

"Our audits have provided districts with guidance on how to improve their financial operation to protect taxpayer dollars and still deliver the best education possible,” he said. "We also want to work on identifying potential cost saving opportunities for increased efficiency in school district operations."

DiNapoli did single out half a dozen school districts, two of which are in the Rochester area, as examples of what his team found. Those two districts were the Churchville-Chili Central School District and Caledonia-Mumford Central School District.

At Churchville-Chili, he wrote that the district overestimated its budget, creating $4 million in excess funds over a five-year period.

At Caledonia-Mumford, DiNapoli said the district did not keep adequate records, resulting in approximately $4,000 being stolen. An additional $3,100 was found missing during the audit.

Superintendent David Dinolfo told YNN via telephone that the comptroller's "audit has helped internal controls" and that the "district has taken appropriate action to prevent future incidents from happening."

The superintendent from Churchville-Chili has not yet responded to YNN about the audit.

Making the Grade: Five Years of School District Accountability