GROVE CITY — A forensic auditor will comb through two years worth of financial records to get to the bottom of a budget discrepancy with Midwestern Intermediate Unit IV.

The IU's 13-member board voted unanimously at its meeting Wednesday night to approve a contract with Schneider Downs of Pittsburgh to perform a forensic audit on its finances for the 2014-15 and 2015-16 fiscal years.

The contract was not to exceed $40,000 and the firm is expected to report its findings after about two months of work.

The forensic auditors will be looking to explain how the IU came to have almost $2 million less in its fund balance than was anticipated — a fact recently uncovered by a traditional audit.

The Intermediate Unit IV serves 27 school districts and three vocational technical schools in Butler, Mercer and Lawrence counties, all of which contribute to its budget. In Butler County, it serves the Butler, South Butler, Karns City, Moniteau, Mars, Seneca Valley and Slippery Rock districts and the Butler County Vocational Technical School.

The forensic auditors will return with a definitive answer about what happened, said Wayde Killmeyer, executive director.

“They will very closely look at all the transactions that took place to verify where this discrepancy originated,” Killmeyer said.

Nothing reported in the regular annual audit suggested that there was any criminal activity that took place, he said. Some of the more likely explanations are that the IU lost revenue from loss of business and state budget cuts or that it had overstated its fund balance in the past as a result of poor bookkeeping methods.

“There is a problem here and we have to get it straightened out,” said Cedric Butchy of the Mercer School District, the board's president.

If the audit does uncover anything criminal, the board will take appropriate action, Butchy said.

The administration, which is relatively new, has been working to improve its bookkeeping practices to ensure more discrepancies or problems do not arise, Killmeyer said.

“We are working to correct mistakes of the past,” he said.

The findings of the audit will be presented to the board, possibly at a special meeting late this year, he said.

The board meets monthly and has representatives of its member districts who are elected by fellow school board members.

The IU has a budget of about $100 million.

The IU, which has its headquarters on Maple Street in Grove City, provides educational and administrative leadership, programs, services and resources to its members, according to its website.