Related articles:

TUSD handled money poorly, long before $30K disappeared, audit shows

Other articles by Rhonda Bodfield:

TUSD recruited elsewhere amid layoffs TUSD seeks end to deseg orderMost AZ high school students would fail US citizenship testVail teacher, Tucson students win science awardsHohokam challenge excites new principal Teachers learn to be as good as their words More TUSD language classes'Father Fred' leaves Salpointe after 9 yearsHead of Salpointe Catholic High School to step down TUSD plans ballot items on tech aid, to offset cuts

Health Care
Dependable Health Services
Physical Therapists Mechanical
Komatsu Equipment Co
Resident Field Mechanic Trades/Construction
RANCHO RESORT
MAINTANANCE POSITION Health Care
CENTRAL ARIZONA COLLEGE
DIRECTOR OF HEALTH INFORMATION MANAGEMENT Administrative & Professional
Tucson Urban League
CEO/President Construction
West-Press
Printing Sales and Marketing
Everready Glass
Sales Reps

Months before about $30,000 disappeared from a vault at Catalina Magnet High School, the Tucson Unified School District had been warned that it wasn't following appropriate cash-handling procedures.

The certified public accounting firm Heinfeld, Meech & Co. performed an audit to test the district's internal controls for the fiscal year ending in June 2007 and notified the district in December that it was out of compliance with uniform financial guidelines in several areas.

Among the findings: The district didn't do all it could to keep track of items worth $1,000 or more, didn't establish formal policies governing the use of credit cards and didn't deposit cash quickly enough.

District policy requires schools to deposit daily any sums of more than $1,000. If schools don't meet that threshold, they still must make at least weekly deposits.

Auditors found that in three of 25 cases reviewed, monies from miscellaneous accounts were deposited more than a week after receipt.

And for five of the 10 cash receipts reviewed for funds such as bookstore or athletic revenues, the monies were deposited 13 days or more after they were received.

Monies collected for student clubs or entertainment fared no better. For four of 10 receipts reviewed, the monies were deposited more than a week after they came in. In those cases, no physical count of items was performed, and no cash-register tape was saved, auditors found.

The district's independent audit committee is expected to ask for detailed information from TUSD on what controls were circumvented and how the district has patched up the holes so it doesn't happen at other schools.

The committee's chairwoman, Sandra Parker, said the district also was notified in 2006 that it had the same flaws.

"It's not like they don't know it's a problem. They just haven't reacted to the findings," Parker said. "I have a problem with that. They should at least use this as a tool to improve their internal controls."

It's still unclear exactly what happened at Catalina High on the first day of the fall semester, Aug. 11, because police are still investigating.

District officials say they can't conduct their own investigation because they're waiting for Tucson police officers to finish examining what happened to the roughly $14,000 in cash and $15,000 in checks that had been collected by early August from families to pay for yearbooks, locker rentals and athletic activities.

According to the initial police report, a Catalina High staff member said she had planned to take the money to the bank Aug. 8 but got busy and wasn't able to make it.

Instead she decided to put the money in the vault in the administration office.

Police determined that from outside the vault, there was no way to see the canvas bag that held the money, and at least one employee told police few people have the vault's combination.

Officials discovered the money was missing around 7:15 a.m. Aug. 11. A school safety officer from the district had arrived on campus earlier to respond to a 4 a.m. burglary call but hadn't called the police because there was no sign of forced entry.

No arrests have been made, and Tucson police Officer Linda Galindo had no estimate for when the case may be finalized.

Parents will not have to pony up again for any fees they already paid.

Warren Allison, who runs the district's school safety and security department, said that as far as he knows, there's no way to determine how often money disappears in the district.

"Not everything is reported to us, and what we do get is not conclusive," he said. "There's no one place you could go and get that kind of information."

He acknowledged that a lack of full reporting prevents district officials from knowing the scope of the problem.

"If you don't know what you have, how are you going to fix it?" he asked.

Allison said he hopes that will change under the management of Superintendent Elizabeth Celania-Fagen, who took over in July.

Financial Services Director Bonnie Betz said information was given to all the school principals at the annual back-to-school conference explaining the district's cash-handling requirements.

Betz said, to her knowledge, there have been no similar thefts at other schools.

She said she's working on some suggestions for improved practices that she plans to share with staffers and the district's audit committee, but she is not ready to share those publicly.

"I want to make sure any changes will solve the problem," she said.

"And until we have more information from the investigation, we're not sure exactly what the problem was in this case," she added.

Meanwhile, district officials are still working on improving the way the district tracks its capital assets.

Reports earlier this year showed the district had lost more than $1.6 million in equipment, ranging from washing machines and computers to soccer goals.

The district revised the value of the lost items to $34,000, saying that better reflected the value of the items.