LANSING, Mich. (WLNS) – Lots of of hundreds of unaccounted-for {dollars} revealed in an audit of the Potterville Public Faculties funds earlier this month is probably going the results of “messy bookkeeping,” Interim Sam Sinicropi tells 6 Information in a cellphone interview.
“I don’t think any money got stolen,” Sinicropi says. “I don’t think it did. I think we had some messy bookkeeping. Spending that was not – did not – a lot of oversight on what we were spending.”
(File/WLNS)
He says the board reviewed their funds in June. That funds concluded that the fund steadiness—primarily the distinction between the district’s receipts and expenditures—can be about $750,000.
“You just look at it and see what the difference is. At the time, Potterville Schools was around $750,000 in a fund balance,” he tells 6 Information. “So that means we were getting more, have more come in, than we were spending. When the auditors audited that it ended up being instead of $750,000; it was $71,000.”
That discount places the district susceptible to state oversight. Michigan regulation requires a college district’s fund steadiness to be 5% or extra of the funds. The audit discovered the district was at lower than 1% of the funds. Oversight might lead to extra monitoring by state treasury and schooling officers and doubtlessly, though unlikely, a takeover by state authorities.
The funds was ready underneath a contract with Rehmann. Along with getting ready the funds, the corporate was additionally anticipated to supervise funds spending and deposits. The corporate was paid between $12,000 and $15,000 a month for these companies, Sinicropi says.
The contract with Rehmann was winding down after the Board of Training voted in Might to finish the deal. The corporate was anticipated to proceed offering companies to help with the audit and as soon as the audit was accomplished, Sinicropi says, the contract was over.
A spokesperson for Rehmann despatched 6 Information an announcement.
“Due to client confidentiality, Rehmann cannot comment on the work we have done for Potterville Schools,” the emailed assertion reads. “Rehmann is committed to ensuring integrity and transparency in every transaction between firm and client, and we deny any allegations of impropriety. We are relentlessly committed to upholding the highest level of professional and ethical standards and to following industry guidelines in all aspects of our work.”
Stacy Ann Sipes, president of the Potterville Public Faculties Board of Training, tells 6 Information the Might choice to finish the connection with Rehmann was twofold. She says the enterprise was speculated to be coaching the enterprise supervisor to supervise the funds. The enterprise supervisor is Monica Baker.
“I never touched the budget, I just presented the budget,” Monica Baker says. She additionally tells 6 Information she was by no means supplied any in-depth coaching by Rehmann.
Potterville officers have repeatedly declined to debate Baker’s employment standing with the varsity district. Baker, nonetheless, confirms with 6 Information she’s on paid go away.
“I am still an employee of the district. I am on non-disciplinary administrative leave,” Baker tells 6 Information. She was positioned on go away on or about Aug. 20, she says.
She says the rationale she was given for the paid go away was “that there was a cyber attack on my computer.”
Each Sinicropi and Sipes declined to touch upon Baker’s employment standing with the district.
The second motive the contract was ended, Sipes tells 6 Information, was the results of a budgeting error within the 2023-2024 funds. That error counted a $450,000 grant twice, making a funds gap of $450,000. The board in December adopted a plan introduced by Baker to scale back the district’s funds by 15%.
Sipes says the contractual relationship dates again to 2019.
