The views stated here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the editors of this newspaper. We welcome supporting or opposing views on any published item. Received September 11, 2026.
Connecticut has seventeen active regional school districts. Ten filed their FY2025 audits by the original December 31, 2025 deadline. Six more filed during the extension period. RSD 17 is the only one that has not filed at all. The extension period ended June 30, 2026. As of today the audit still does not appear in the state’s Electronic Audit Reporting System. Haddam and Killingworth will vote on a $151.9 million high school project on September 24, 2026.
An overdue audit does not prove that money is missing or that anyone has done anything wrong. But an audit is the independent examination that tells taxpayers whether the District’s financial statements fairly represent its revenues, expenditures, cash, liabilities and fund balance. Until that work is finished, taxpayers have no independently-verified picture of RSD 17’s FY2025 finances, or of the Board of Education’s ability to oversee them. That matters more when the district is asking two small towns to authorize $151.9 million.
This did not begin with FY2025
RSD 17 has missed the original December 31 deadline every year since FY2021. Those audits were late, but every one of them was completed within the extension period. FY2025 is different. The District has gone from habitually late to still unfiled after the full extension expired.
By the board chair’s own count, the interim director hired in July 2025 was the sixth person to hold that job since January 2020. That turnover is real, and it may explain why RSD 17 has struggled to meet the original deadline. But it raises an obvious question. If the District completed the previous four audits within the extension period despite the same turnover, why could it not do so this year? Six finance directors in five years is not simply something that happened to the district. It is itself a governance problem.
In June, answering questions from Killingworth resident Robert Tobey, Board of Education Chair Heather Pach blamed the delay on staff turnover and on a new auditor appointed in the final month of the fiscal year. She gave no completion date. Three months later, on September 9, she said all requested information was in the auditor’s hands and a response was “expected soon.” With absentee ballots already out, “expected soon” is not enough.
The state reimbursement requires financial discipline
The District expects the state to cover roughly half the project cost, with local borrowing capped at $77.2 million. That is a real benefit to both towns, but the state does not hand over a check at the start. School construction grants are paid as eligible costs are incurred. The District has to keep contracts, invoices and payment records, determine which expenses qualify, and file reimbursement requests throughout, and the state holds back a portion until the final project audit.
I have found no rule that an overdue annual audit automatically cancels a school construction grant, and I do not suggest otherwise. But a district expecting to collect roughly $75 million from the state has to show it has the staff, the controls and the stability to document every eligible expense over the life of the project. Any cost the state finds ineligible or inadequately documented does not disappear. Local taxpayers pay it. If RSD 17 cannot complete a routine annual audit, taxpayers have every right to ask who will handle the reimbursement paperwork that brings those dollars home.
Taxpayers deserve direct answers
Before September 24, the District should answer four questions:
- What specifically caused the FY2025 audit to miss both the original deadline and the full extension period?
- Has the auditor identified accounting adjustments or internal control concerns?
- Who will prepare and document the school construction reimbursement requests, and what independent financial oversight will be in place throughout the project?
- What is being done to keep the District from falling two audits behind when FY2026 comes due on December 31, 2026?
Every other active regional school district in Connecticut has filed its FY2025 audit. RSD 17 has not, and its previous four were completed despite the same instability now offered as the explanation for this one.
Taxpayers are being asked to make a very large and very long-term commitment that depends in substantial part on this district’s ability to manage roughly $75 million in state reimbursement. Asking to see the most recently completed audit, and a plan for managing those reimbursements, is not negative and it is not political. It is basic due diligence.
Laura Lefko, Killingworth
Connecticut OPM audit database: https://ears.opm.ct.gov/Public/Report.aspx
HK Now interview with Board of Education Chair Heather Pach, September 9, 2026: https://hk-now.com/2026/09/09/q-a-with-rsd-17-board-of-education-chair-on-high-school-renovation-project/
HK Now, “BOE Chair Responds to ‘Request for Answers’ on RSD 17 Budget,” June 19, 2026: https://hk-now.com/2026/06/19/boe-chair-responds-to-request-for-answers-on-rsd-17-budget/
