Kathleen Moore reports for the Times Union that a state comptroller’s office audit showed that Chatham residents were taxed too much by their school district. The audit found that the district, “annually appropriated over $1.3 million of fund balance they did not need or use to finance operations. Therefore, taxpayers were taxed more than necessary.” The school board says it used the excess money for a $22 million capital project. The audit showed that the Chatham school district raised the tax levy by an average of 1.6 percent a year even though they had surpluses every year. The comptroller's office said, Chatham officials, “intentionally overestimat[ed] appropriations for the purpose of not using appropriated fund balance — while purporting to plan to use fund balance to cover an operating deficit − is both misleading to voters and interested parties and lacks transparency.” School officials claim there was no mismanagement, even though they overtaxed citizens, and boasted that their mistake gave the school system a strong credit rating, which saved hundreds of thousands of dollars in interest. But in their statements, school officials never admit their error. Read more about this story in the Times Union.