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Wood County BOE sounds alarm over school financial audits

Wood County Board of Education President Rick Olcott speaks at Tuesday’s school board meeting. Board members expressed concerns after school finance audits showed multiple schools repeatedly ignoring state finance policy concerning purchase documentation and the handling of money and deposits. (Photo by Michael Erb)

PARKERSBURG — An internal financial audit found numerous finance policy violations at area schools, some of which were findings in previous audits which were never corrected.

Information was presented during Tuesday’s Wood County Board of Education meeting by Superintendent Will Hosaflook and Finance Director Whitni Kines. The school audits are part of an annual process under state finance law and guidelines.

Officials said while the audit found no instances of financial mismanagement or misappropriation at any Wood County schools, the audit did show secretaries and principals not following state policy on how money is handled and how purchases are documented.

Kines said those issues included unauthorized purchases, incomplete or missing documentation, not following oversight procedures for ticket sales, and deposits not being made in a timely manner.

“There are some continuing themes we have seen throughout the audit this year, last year, and in prior years,” she said.

Board members expressed anger and concern, saying while mistakes happen, many of the documented violations appeared simply to be employees ignoring state policy.

Board member Justin Raber called the findings “appalling,” especially considering most of the issues were previously identified and brought to the attention of those schools.

“There is zero excuse for these findings,” he said. “They’re not fixing the problem. When I see these things, it makes me question the validity of what is happening with our funds.”

Raber said not correcting the issues is “insubordination” and indicated the issues could be grounds for dismissal.

“We’re going to make sure that the citizens’ money is accounted for and taken care of properly, or we’re going to find the people that will do it,” he said.

Board President Rick Olcott said in reviewing the audit findings, he saw instances in which schools were holding on to thousands of dollars for weeks at a time. State policy requires schools to make a deposit weekly or as soon as the amount of money on hand exceeds $500.

“When I see an $8,000 expenditure with no documentation behind it going to an individual, or when you see the magnitude of funds that are not being deposited in a timely manner, sometimes weeks, and they are in the $9,000-$10,000 (range) … it is disturbing,” he said.

Olcott said coming from a career in private industry he could not imagine a scenario where an employee would continue to make these kinds of mistakes after they had been identified.

“People would lose their jobs for some of the things I saw,” he said. “If those things were taking place, they’d be unemployed.”

Olcott also expressed concerns because the audits used a sampling of transactions instead of a full accounting.

“How prevalent is this?” he said. “This is just a sampling. If you look beneath the water … what is the undercurrent here?”

Board member Ron Tice said the administrators should be held accountable for the audit findings, especially those that were repeated from previous years.

“That should be included on their evaluation at the end of the year,” he said.

Kines said the school system holds annual training sessions with school secretaries and Hosaflook does trainings with administrators. Several board members pointed out Hosaflook often heads state trainings on finance which are attended by administrators throughout West Virginia. Board members called on administrators to determine a course of action and return to the board with additional information.

“That is our expectation, that we’d better get our house in order,” Olcott said. “If we’re not correcting the problem, then people aren’t serious about it or they don’t think there is going to be accountability.”

In other business, the board unanimously approved the three-day unpaid suspension of professional employee Dennis Craig. The board met behind closed doors for about 15 minutes before voting in open session. No details on the employee or the reasons for the suspension were given in open session.

Michael Erb can be reached at merb@newsandsentinel.com.

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