Duplin County’s Board of Education would be wise to give serious consideration to some of the 18 recommendations that will be made in an audit report that will be made public in the next few weeks.

Authorized by the Duplin County Board of Commissioners after a jury ruling last summer ordering the board to pay the school system over $4 million in current expenses, the audit shows education administrators could save some $14 million over the next five years if certain practices were put in place.

The audit, which hasn’t officially been made public, was leaked last week and points out a variety of savings ideas including reducing assistant principal expenses, reduce general administration expenses, consolidate the central office, eliminate the filling of currently vacant positions.

In other words, if administrators in Duplin County Schools would stop feathering their own nest and look after the needs of students and teachers first, then money could be saved.

We’re certain those words are difficult for administrators to swallow, but the self-portrait the audit apparently paints shows a school system that could be leaner in the expense department and wiser in its use of personnel and funds. Not so much that they’ve wasted money, really, but merely that they’ve not always spent it in the smartest of ways.

In essence, the draft report shows, by virtue of its lack of discussion of them, that the schools, themselves, are run efficiently, with little in the way of apparent waste.

Not so true, the draft indicates, of the central office, where the report points out that “non-financial management and operations,” if addressed, could produce a savings of $1 million per year.

In the report, suggestions are also made to reduce legal expenses and to co-join county and school activities in relations to transportation.

While it is, without question, a shame that Duplin’s commissioners had to expend $75,000 for an audit of the school system, it appeared both necessary and prudent in the wake of the school system’s lawsuit, the lack of communication that has existed between the two boards and the confusion over actual needs in the school system.

The audit should clear many things up.

We hope school officials will use this report to get their own house in order, and we hope commissioners use it as a tool to meet the true needs in the school system, as they should be met.