In two instances, involving the handling of funds for the hockey fundraiser and for team programs, Cayer recommended that the School Committee investigate further for possible violations of state purchasing laws.

The report also recommended that the committee investigate why the School Department spent $97,000 from 2003 to 2009 to buy athletic clothing and equipment from Chet O'Neill Associates, a Massachusetts company whose owner, Chet O'Neill, employed Kenyon at his Big New England Football Clinic. In addition, an assistant football coach at North Kingstown, Dick Downey, worked for both the clinic and as a sales representative for the equipment company, the audit said.

"Mr. Kenyon makes or approves purchases from Chet O'Neill Associates, without getting competitive bids, yet he is employed by Mr. O'Neill in The Big New England Football Clinic,'' the report said. "In addition, these purchases are made through Mr. Downey, who is also employed by NKSD.''

Cayer also found an $1,100 invoice in 2006 from Chet O'Neill Associates that "may have been paid twice.''

Kenyon, who met with the accounting firm Friday, said that the Chet O'Neill purchases were not advertised for competitive bidding because individual coaches made their own decisions and handled their own purchases, according to the report. But the report cites correspondence between Kenyon and an unidentified coach, "in which the coach complains about receiving pressure from Mr. Kenyon to use a particular, more expensive vendor, when the coach wanted to go with a less expensive option.''

Regarding the "questionable reimbursement'' to Kenyon for his 2005 trip to Orlando, the report found that Kenyon received a $1,364 advance from the athletic student activity account prior to the trip and then got a $1,331 reimbursement from the School Department after he returned. Kenyon told the accountants that he discovered the oversight five weeks later, and reimbursed the student activity account.

The accountants also asked Kenyon about another request for reimbursement he made to Athletic IQ, a fledgling testing business for student athletes that Kenyon was also working for at the Orlando conference. In reviewing his records this summer for the accountants' review, Kenyon said, he discovered that an Athletic IQ executive had paid Kenyon's hotel bill, without Kenyon's knowledge, and that Kenyon's credit card was subsequently credited with that amount.

Kenyon told the accountants that he "unintentionally overlooked'' the reversal on his credit card and therefore failed to reimburse the School Department. "He stated that, in retrospect, he understands the issue of the appearance of impropriety by serving dual roles as the Athletic Director at NKHS and his consultant role with Athletic IQ,'' the report says. "Therefore, he will reimburse $1,331.17 that was paid by the School Department after the completion of the conference.''

Kenyon also told the accountants that his wife and children went to Florida with him, and that he paid their expenses personally.

The report also questioned whether the School Department received its fair share of money from school photos, team programs and a hockey fundraiser, and urged further investigation.

MAK Publishing, in Taunton, Mass., was paid $48,000 from 2003 to 2009. Although North Kingstown High School Principal Gerald Foley signed several of the checks, he told the accountants that he had never heard of the company and didn't know what the money was for. Kenyon told the accountants that MAK has produced team programs for 20 years, soliciting advertising and keeping 70 percent of the proceeds, with the remainder going to the athletic department.

Accountants calculated that MAK received $3,746 of the $4,000 in ad revenue for last autumn's program book, when its 70 percent cut should have been $2,800. The report also questioned whether MAK misled advertisers to believe that its salespeople work for the town. And it said the arrangement, which has paid MAK an average $7,000 a year, should have been put out to bid.

The report says that the New Customer Development Group and a man named Charles Cash, who helped raise money for a new hockey team in 2002, received $17,000, or 80 percent of the proceeds.

And it questioned a contract between the high school and Gary Melino Photography, the official photographer for the high school for many years. While the town's middle and elementary schools have a contract with another photographer that pays the schools a 20-percent commission on photo orders, the high-school contract, signed by Principal Foley with no apparent competitive bidding, only requires an annual $250 payment to the yearbook account.

The report said most disbursements from student activity funds, which average $400,000 a year, "appeared to be for legitimate student activity purposes. But it concluded there was inadequate oversight of the funds and "many instances of expenditures ... not being made for the benefit of the students.'' Among them: about $8,800 in donations and fees for golf tournaments, some of which Kenyon and other, unnamed "coaches and supporters'' participated in.

The School Committee hired Cayer Caccia in March to perform the financial review, after years of questions about spending. The inquiry focused on the student activity account, which Kenyon had control of, as director of athletics and student activities.
Around the same time, the newly elected school board was voting to cancel a new three-year contract that the prior School Committee had awarded Kenyon last year. Kenyon appealed that decision to the state Department of Education, and a hearing was held in the spring.

Kenyon was still awaiting a decision in early August, when Supt. Philip Thornton received preliminary results of the accountants' report, and suspended Kenyon with pay. Kenyon asked to be placed on unpaid leave, saying that he had done nothing wrong, and resigned at the committee's Aug. 25 meeting.

The report also warns against cash payments to softball umpires. The report quotes an e-mail from Kenyon to the softball coach: the umpires, he wrote, "made a deal that if we paid the umps in cash, we could have a discounted rate.''