Jan. 13, 2014 - Tavares, FL
FYI - this is similar to the local Lake County case of the incorrect attendance figures provided by a charter school that resulted in a possible mandated return of up to $1-million from Lake County Schools to the Florida State Education Dept.
Some quotes:
“Sullivan's (the Inspector General) latest annual report, issued earlier this month,revealed that a high school principal and her programmer created "ghost students" to pad enrollment so the school would be eligible for an assistant principal and additional non-teaching staff. Also uncovered was an elementary school principal who changed grades to allow children to graduate.”
“The IG's report in the past two years has detailed cases of fraudulent applications for free and reduced-price lunch. Principals and assistant principals were found to have falsified data on their own children's forms. The data helped financially strapped schools earn extra state and federal funds.”
The article is quite long and indicates many areas where school district controls were found to be lax. However, the Chicago School system has 650 schools, so more chances of wrongdoing to occur.
The issue is that if data resulting in payments to the School District, Charter schools or grant programs is manipulated and audits detect that, fines and refunds could affect general funds and programs that depend on them.
I would hope the CFO has methods in place to ensure data is not being cooked like happened in the Chicago situation. In businesses, it is common for sales staff or managers to manipulate sales and other data to achieve sales commissions or bonuses, but in schools, it can be attendance figures.
This also justifies the existence of audit programs to ensure performance or attendance data is not cooked.
Vance Jochim
Lake County Fiscal Rangers
Chief Fiscal Watchdog
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