Oracle – Using SELECT MAX(PK) Instead of SEQUENCE.NEXTVAL

I'm pretty certain this will end up being an artifact of your code, or the .net driver you are using. I've knocked up a quick demo for you using pure SQL - PL/SQL and never get a lost sequence value. Incidentally the ref cursor you are using is probably unnecessary and likely impacts performance and readability of the code - my demo includes an insert_record2 procedure that consistently performs over 10% faster -in about 26s on my laptop vs 36 for the ref cursor version. I at least also think is easier to understand. You could obviously run a modified version against your test database complete with audit trigger.

/* 
demo for dbse 
assumes a user with create table, create sequence, create procedure pivs and quota. 

*/

drop table dbse13142 purge;

create table dbse13142(
    the_id number not null
,   name   varchar2(20)
,   userid number)
;

drop sequence x_seq;
CREATE SEQUENCE  X_SEQ NOCACHE  NOORDER  NOCYCLE ;

create or replace PROCEDURE Insert_Record
                (p_name    IN  VARCHAR2,                
                 p_userid  IN  INTEGER,
                 cur_out   OUT sys_refcursor)
    IS
        v_id NUMBER := 0;
    BEGIN
        -- Get id value from sequence
        SELECT x_seq.nextval
          INTO v_id
          FROM dual;

        -- Line below is X_PKG line 40
        INSERT INTO dbse13142
            (the_id,            
             name,                        
             userid)
          VALUES
            (v_id,
             p_name,                        
             p_userid);

        -- Return new id
        OPEN cur_out FOR
            SELECT v_id the_id
              FROM dual;
    END;
/


create or replace PROCEDURE Insert_Record2
                (p_name    IN  VARCHAR2,                
                 p_userid  IN  INTEGER,
                 p_theid   OUT dbse13142.the_id%type)
    IS
    BEGIN
        -- Get id value from sequence
        SELECT x_seq.nextval
          INTO p_theid
          FROM dual;

        -- Line below is X_PKG line 40
        INSERT INTO dbse13142
            (the_id,            
             name,                        
             userid)
          VALUES
            (p_theid,
             p_name,                        
             p_userid);
    END;
/

set timing on

declare
   c sys_refcursor;
begin   
for i in 1..100000 loop
   insert_record('User '||i,i,c);
   close c;
end loop;
commit;
end;
/

select count(*) from dbse13142;
truncate table dbse13142;

declare
  x number;
begin   
for i in 1..100000 loop
   insert_record2('User '||i,i,x);
end loop;
commit;
end;
/

select count(*) from dbse13142;
truncate table dbse13142;

Your current query is not giving the desired result because you are using a GROUP BY clause on the PERSON_ID column which has a unique value for both entries. As a result you will return both rows.

There are a few ways that you can solve this. You can use a subquery to apply the aggregate function to return the max(LAST_UPDATE_DATE_TIME) for each SCHOOL_CODE:

select s1.LAST_UPDATE_DATE_TIME,
  s1.SCHOOL_CODE,
  s1.PERSON_ID
from SCHOOL_STAFF s1
inner join
(
  select max(LAST_UPDATE_DATE_TIME) LAST_UPDATE_DATE_TIME,
    SCHOOL_CODE
  from SCHOOL_STAFF
  group by SCHOOL_CODE
) s2
  on s1.SCHOOL_CODE = s2.SCHOOL_CODE
  and s1.LAST_UPDATE_DATE_TIME = s2.LAST_UPDATE_DATE_TIME;

See SQL Fiddle with Demo

Or you can use use a windowing function to return the rows of data for each school with the most recent LAST_UPDATE_DATE_TIME:

select SCHOOL_CODE, PERSON_ID, LAST_UPDATE_DATE_TIME
from
(
  select SCHOOL_CODE, PERSON_ID, LAST_UPDATE_DATE_TIME,
    row_number() over(partition by SCHOOL_CODE 
                        order by LAST_UPDATE_DATE_TIME desc) seq
  from SCHOOL_STAFF
  where STAFF_TYPE_NAME='Principal'
) d
where seq = 1;

See SQL Fiddle with Demo

This query implements row_number() which assigns a unique number to each row in the partition of SCHOOL_CODE and placed in a descending order based on the LAST_UPDATE_DATE_TIME.

As a side note, the JOIN with aggregate function is not exactly the same as the row_number() version. If you have two rows with the same event time the JOIN will return both rows, while the row_number() will only return one. If you want to return both with a windowing function, then consider using the rank() windowing function instead as it will return ties:

select SCHOOL_CODE, PERSON_ID, LAST_UPDATE_DATE_TIME
from
(
  select SCHOOL_CODE, PERSON_ID, LAST_UPDATE_DATE_TIME,
    rank() over(partition by SCHOOL_CODE 
                        order by LAST_UPDATE_DATE_TIME desc) seq
  from SCHOOL_STAFF
  where STAFF_TYPE_NAME='Principal'
) d
where seq = 1;

See Demo