Joseph Rodella, president of the Mt. Lebanon school board, was not surprised when he got a letter from state Auditor General Jack Wagner stating that an audit found no wrongdoing in the handling of change orders involved with the district's $52 million renovation of seven elementary schools.

"In the end, we feel validated that the people that were overseeing the project were doing their job with integrity as we always thought they were," Mr. Rodella said.

The auditor general's office started an investigation into the elementary renovation project Feb. 20 after questions were raised about the number and amounts of change orders being presented to the board from the project, which concluded last year.

The audit was concluded late last month, when Mr. Rodella received the letter. The district released it and an audit report yesterday.

The only recommendation in the report is that the district should establish a written policy for approving change orders and reporting them to the board. The board already started to discuss such a policy and presented a draft at its discussion meeting last night, Mr. Rodella said.

The audit report said the district did not have an unusual amount of change orders and that the increased cost of the project -- from $45 million to $52 million -- reflected construction items that were restored to the project and normal increased costs and inflation over the four years of the project in addition to routine change orders.

The report, written by Jeffrey H. Gribb, director of the auditor general's Office of Special Investigations, pointed out that the original cost estimate of the project in July 2002 was $51.7 million but that the "then sitting" school board cut out enough items to reduce the cost to $45 million.

A later board, made up of different members, restored some of those items to the project. In addition, the report said, some increased costs in change orders totaling $640,000 were incurred by removal of hidden asbestos in the buildings. The report said it's not unusual to incur such costs when renovating older buildings such as the Mt. Lebanon elementary schools.

The $2 million in change orders aside from the asbestos removal "appears reasonable," the report said.

The report also said that another allegation made to its office -- that a club sports team was given priority over school teams in using district facilities and was not charged the appropriate fees -- was unfounded.

In addition, another allegation -- that the competitive bidding process would be circumvented in the event a new natatorium would be built -- was found to be moot since no natatorium was built, the report said.

Finance Director Jan Klein said representatives from the auditor general's office did not say who filed the complaints with the office nor did they outline the specific scope of the probe as they investigated.

Questions about the number of change orders arose in early 2006, when three new board members -- Mark Hart, Dan Remely and Alan Silhol -- took office. The new school board members questioned the number of change orders that came before the board and why the work cited in the orders was already completed by the time the board was asked to approve it.

Mr. Gribb's report said the work was not performed without approval. He said the district followed its past practice of having the assistant superintendent approve any change orders under $10,000. For change orders more than $10,000, the assistant superintendent was required to get verbal approval from the board president or vice president. The information was later reported to the board.