Fiscal Rangers

Salt Lake City School District loses millions in THREE Employee Embezzlements

Well, here we go with another school district being the victim of millions in not ONE, but THREE different employee embezzlements...one for $4.3-million, a second for $338,000 and a third for another $1-million... there is something drastically wrong nationally with management skills related to school districts... vj ================================================ from the CBS affiliate in Salt Lake City, Utah... http://www.kutv.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=a6f2d1b8-8630-47d4-b912-3f8f40f82b71 School Districts Addressing Problems Released In Audit Two school districts ( in the Salt Lake City, Utah area) that uncovered cases of employee embezzlement and fraud are addressing problems in their systems that allowed the fraud to take place, according to a legislative audit. The report also says that most school districts have controls that would prevent fraud from ever taking place. “We regret the fact that this did go on, but we have made a concerted effort and put into place the controls that are necessary to eliminate the chances of this going on in the future,” said Bruce Williams, business administrator for Davis School District. Nearly a year ago, a federal indictment accused the district’s former Title I director and her husband of defrauding the Davis District out of at least $4.3 million by selling unauthorized copies of books and... Read more →

Judge Rules that Student Viewers of Gore's Movie must be warned of Inaccuracies

This is an article about a British judge who ruled that Al Gore's movie "Inconvenient Truth" was riddled with so many factual errors that students could not be forced to watch it in class without being warned about all the factual inaccuracies. Thus, the movie seems to be political fraud - skewing data and biasing results to make an unsubstantiated point. Ok, so this is from Fox News, but the writer is a specialist in uncovering junk science, and writes a good description of the inaccuracies. However, you would expect a response from the liberal Washington Post, and I have also included that below the first article. Decide for yourself, as Fox News says... vj ================================================================ from: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,303525,00.html Junk Science: Hey Al Gore, We Want a Refund! Friday, October 19, 2007 By Steven Milloy A British judge ruled on the eve of Al Gore co-winning the Nobel Peace Prize that students forced to watch "An Inconvenient Truth" must be warned of the film’s factual errors. But would there be any science at all left in Gore’s "truth" if these errors and their progeny were excised? Minutes of non-science filler dominate the opening sequence — images of the Gore farm, Earth... Read more →

Arizona School District Supt. is under Criminal Investigation (2006)

Below is an older, early 2006 article about a Maricopa County, AZ School Superintendent, Sandra Dowling, who was arrested for running up a $4-million deficit in some special schools for the homeless that she controlled. She put a son and daughter on the payroll by circumventing hiring procedures, etc. However, there are not enough details to indicate the true cause of the deficit and we could not find the final result of the investigation. This situation doesn't have any clear relationships to how local Lake County Schools are run, but again is an indicator that School Districts somehow seem to have a high degree of frauds and mismanagement vs other government agencies. This example may indicate the lack of informed accounting advisors and the Supt. ran operations of three schools for homeless children without much oversight. See also the second article dated 11 months later, indicating the issues still have not been resolved, but Dowling, the Superintendent, WAS "recently indicted on suspicion of 25 crimes including theft and misuse of more than $1.8 million from a fund she controlled as superintendent." vj ================================================== from: http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/story/57799 (Phoenix area) January 26, 2006 - 9:59AM Criminal inquiry targets head of county schools Gary... Read more →

Palm Beach County School District Auditor Reports four frauds

The article below is an early report on four separate frauds uncovered by the School District Auditor. Details on amounts lost were not disclosed, so we will follow up on this later to get the details. Again, this example indicates the importance of having an effective internal audit function in School Districts. vj ========================================== sun-sentinel.com/news/local/palmbeach/sfl-flpaudit1013psoct13,0,4953441.story South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com School district wants criminal charges against ex-bookkeeper By Rhonda J. Miller South Florida Sun-Sentinel October 13, 2007 Click here to find out more! The Palm Beach County School District is recommending criminal charges against a former bookkeeper at Loggers Run Middle School west of Boca Raton, School District spokeswoman Vickie Middlebrooks said Friday. The district referred the Loggers Run case to the State Attorney's Office, with a recommendation from School Police for charges related to grand theft and fraud, Middlebrooks said. It was one of four cases of possible financial wrongdoing the School District Audit Committee reviewed Friday. The charges in the Loggers Run case are based on an audit of school finances that ended in May, District Auditor Lung Chiu said. The district did not release details of the financial problems and names of the employees being investigated because the police... Read more →

Polk County School District secretary Cheated Schools of $75,000

Well, it has been over 7 months, and the local Lake County School District still doesn't have a new internal auditor due to the slowness of the recruiting process. I am on the audit committee, and we are soon interviewing a number of qualified candidates, however. Nearby Polk County DOES have an internal auditor, and she just found a school district secretary in Haines City who siphoned off over $75,000 in improper overtime payments plus she is the "prime suspect" related to another $13,000 of missing assets. I know School Districts are like big families full of friends "that wouldn't do that sort of thing", but my experience is EVERY organization has some people who will take advantage of weak business controls, so a sense of urgency is needed to approve a new District Auditor and future staff. vj ================================ from: http://www.theledger.com/article/20071009/NEWS/710090410/1039 Published: Tuesday, October 9, 2007 Report: Secretary Cheated Schools of $75,000 Auditor says Haines City assistant filed false overtime reports. By John Chambliss The Ledger HAINES CITY | Terri Beadle's name stood out when Polk school auditors did a routine report on overtime pay for school employees last school year. Beadle, the former principal's secretary at Daniel Jenkins... Read more →

Atlanta School District Couple Convicted of Bribery & Fraud

This article illustrates the downfall of two married Atlanta Public School District employees who took bribes from vendors to award purchase contracts. They will each have to repay over $300,000 and also spend 2-3 years in Federal Prison because the vendors were receiving federal E-Rate funds without competitive bidding. Purchasing fraud seems to be a big area for school districts and other local government agencies. All it takes is a willing vendor and a bribe (kickback) accepting administrator. vj =================================================== from an Atlanta area newspaper's website: http://www.thecitizen.com/~citizen0/node/21272 Couple sentenced in bribery, fraud case Mon, 10/08/2007 - 9:11am By: Ben Nelms A Tyrone couple has been sentenced on bribery and fraud charges involving the federal “E-Rate” program in the Atlanta public school system. Arthur Scott, 47, was sentenced in U.S. District Court Sept. 28 to three years and one month in federal prison, three years of supervised probation and ordered to pay $333,529 in restitution in connection with a bribery scheme in the E-Rate program, according to U.S. Attorney representative Patrick Crosby. Evelyn Meyer Scott, 42, was sentenced to two years in prison, three years of supervised probation and ordered to pay $333,529 in restitution for conspiring to commit fraud and... Read more →

Florida Labeled as Center for Billions in Federal Medicare & Health Care Fraud

Well, it seems that Florida State's southern area is a hotbed of fraud where many clinics are filing fraudulent medicare claims for HIV and other treatments. Similar to car insurance or health insurance fraud, the fraudsters pay "clients" to file bogus medicare claims, and many of the "clients" are said to be illegal immigrants. Thus another cost of illegal immigration to the taxpayer is the willingness of these groups to participate in health insurance fraud to earn incomes. Barely mentioned was a reference to another type of fraud for wheelchairs and scooters for invalids: In March, federal inspectors found dozens of wheelchair and electric scooter suppliers in Florida that ran afoul of federal rules, including phantom operations that billed the government but had no bricks-and-mortar locations. A major problem with government is that politicians pass laws for social or spending programs without enough funding for proper business and anti-fraud controls or monitoring. This needs to be changed. Maybe we need an independent review group with tough powers to prevent the rollout of any spending program until adequate procedures, controls and monitoring systems are in place to prevent fraud. Below are two articles AND the full Federal Dept. of Health &... Read more →