The Nye County school board approved what CPA Daniel C. McArthur described as "a very clean audit" at its Nov. 29 regular meeting.

McArthur had mostly good news for the board resulting from the independent audit, including informing the board the district stayed within its budget by $2 million.

The general fund saw an increase of $2 million, going from $862,290 in fiscal year 2006 to $2,680,385 for FY 2007.

However, the audit also revealed a mistake by the county, which paid $1,257,000 more than it should have in property taxes.

Since the district still had the money in its piggy bank, however, it can be returned without the district facing fiscal difficulties.

In addition, McArthur said that previous suggestions for districtwide money management, such as reducing the number of handwritten checks, a fuel card policy and the use of electronic signatures for online banking, had all been successfully implemented.

The district did pay out approximately $200,000 more than it had budgeted for health insurance. But a re-insurance policy held by the district kicked in and ensured the program was back in the black by the meeting.

Later in the meeting, the board approved several changes to the employee health insurance plan.

The policy will now implement a "disease management program" from American Health.

"We haven't been healthy, and we've been concerned about that for a long time," Ray Richie, chief financial and administrative office said. "And this year it really impacted us financially."

Ritchie said it was even necessary to raise premiums by 10 percent in order to replenish the district's health care fund.

The new program hopes to help alleviate that problem, however, and includes a number employees can call 24/7 to speak to a nurse about health problems.

Participants can also check out symptoms or receive information online.

The program is expected to alleviate some of the additional costs being incurred to the program by employees going to the emergency room for minor symptoms that could potentially be solved simply through a regular doctor's appointment.

Ritchie said for active participants in the program, emergency room visits substantially decreased and attendance increased.

In addition, the company is proactive and contacts people with pre-existing conditions to inform them of any additional steps that can be taken to improve their health upon completion of a completely confidential survey.

The problem also addressed the county's difficulty in conducting health fairs because of it being so geographically spread out.

Ritchie also said the program did not result in any additional cost to the program itself.