Auditor Finds Problems With EV Expense Reports

CORRECTION: Saturday, October 7, 1995; V9 East Valley School District was the subject of a recent state audit, not East Valley High, as was stated in an item on the cover if the Thursday Valley Voice.

East Valley School District did not adequately document why they spent $6,000 on meals at local restaurants, a state audit reported.

It was not the cost of the meals that troubled the auditor as much as the absence of documentation and lack of a formal policy about when meals can be charged to the district.

During the 1993-94 school year, numerous meals at Spokane area restaurants were charged to East Valley. On many of the sales receipts, just a first name or two is jotted down with a one or two word explanation for the meeting.

For example, one receipt for $22.06 at Matthew’s Restaurant on North Pines simply says, “Tom and Darryl, board meeting.” Another, for $19.06 at Cafe Donna on East Trent, just across the street from the district offices, says “Breakfast, nurses.”

“Those were business meetings,” said state auditor Brian Sonntag. “It consisted of one person or a couple of people going up and having a meal and charging it to the school district and that’s clearly inappropriate. That’s like school district employees operating with expense accounts.”

Tom Crouch, business manager for the district, said many of the meals were “working” breakfasts or lunches. Also, he said, district administrators sometimes worked a full day then charged dinner to the district before going to an evening school board meeting.

“How do you expect people to go all the way home which can be miles in this area?” asked Tim Wick, president of the EV School Board.

The meals were charged to district credit cards, which are given to all central office administrators. Credit cards also are given to school board members when they travel for educational conferences.

Meals charged during the 1993-94 school year varied from two people discussing a personnel problem over lunch to an assistant superintendent taking school nurses to breakfast.

Crouch, who’s been with the district for 15 years, said expense records always have been handled the same way and the auditor never has questioned them before.

That’s true, said Ann Flannigan, a special assistant at the auditor’s office. “There definitely has been a change to where we spend a lot more time on where cash is being given out,” she said.

Targeted areas that garner numerous cash receipts include travel, bid requirements and student body funds, she said.

Nonetheless, Crouch said, East Valley has created a new policy that explains when it is appropriate to charge meals to the district.

That policy says that to receive compensation for a meal charged to the district, all future receipts or statements must include: the names of the people in attendance, the relationships of those people to business being conducted, what those people ate and drank, what type of meeting was held and why a meal was necessary.

East Valley also has cut down on meetings scheduled around meal times, Crouch said. “If it’s raising some questions, we are going to change.”

Shortly after the auditor findings were reported, East Valley Superintendent Chuck Stocker sent a memo to all central office administrators, who are the only ones with district credit cards.

“When we hold central office meetings, they will either be conducted between 8 and 12 noon or 1 and 5 p.m.,” Stocker wrote. “If we decide to meet earlier in the morning or later in the afternoon and care to complete these meetings with breakfast, lunch or dinner each individual must pay for their own food.”

District officials were cooperative in trying to solve the problem, Sonntag said. “We’re not reporting some major scandal, but we’ve uncovered a practice that is inappropriate.”

, DataTimes