By Rob Moritz
Arkansas News Bureau
LITTLE ROCK — Pulaski County Special School District board members collected more than $7,600 in questionable travel advances and the district initially paid a departing superintendent $84,500 more than an agreed-to financial settlement, a state audit released today revealed.
The audit, presented to the Legislative Joint Auditing Committee also showed a district maintenance supervisor made nearly $480,000 in unauthorized purchases before he was caught.
“This is outrageous,” Sen. Kim Hendren, R-Gravette, said after hearing the audit report. “It’s time the Pulaski County Special School District got taken over if this is the kind of foolishness that’s going on.”
Auditors said board members agreed to a financial settlement of $185,000 for former Superintendent James Sharpe upon his resignation last year, but that Sharpe actually was paid $269,520.
Sharpe, who now is superintendent of a school district in Oklahoma, has since reimbursed the district the difference, less $11,602 in payroll tax withholdings.
The committee was told that four of the seven board members whose travel advances were questioned in the audit have either repaid the money or submitted more documentation supporting the payments.
James Deimer, a supervisor in the district’s maintenance division, recently pleaded guilty in federal court to theft of property from a government entity and is awaiting sentencing on June 8.
The audit also found:
—Sharpe may have been overpaid $17,303 from July 2005 until he resigned. The district has filed a lawsuit in Pulaski County Circuit Court to recoup the money.
—Sharpe apparently was reimbursed for, or charged on a district credit card, unallowable, undocumented expenses of $7,836.
—The district overpaid a vendor $11,975.
—Potential waste and abuse of district resources due to excessive use of emergency purchase orders and overtime compensation to employees in the maintenance department.
The audit blamed much of the financial mismanagement on poor oversight by the school district.
“Administrative staff and the board did not exercise proper management fiscal oversight responsibility nor demonstrate a ‘tone at the top’ promoting commitment to financial prudence and consistency with policies and procedures,” the report said.
Newly hired superintendent Charles Hopson, who is begin work July 1, told the panel he was “equally outraged” by the audit findings and assured lawmakers that all of the deficiencies cited are being addressed.
“It is my intention to come here and commit myself long term,” Hopson said. “We are looking at immediately putting structures in place.”
The school board requested the state audit last year after questions were raised about Sharpe’s financial settlement and other financial matters in the district, auditor Kim Williams said.
The audit findings have been turned over the Pulaski County prosecutor, the FBI, state Department of Education, the state Board of Education and the Pulaski County sheriff’s office.
