Egregious waste evident in small district’s audit

OME officials insist claims of school waste are overblown. A recent review of the Crooked Oak school district conducted by the state auditor’s office suggests otherwise.

Auditors found one maintenance employee, Michael Robinson, was paid $59,229 more than authorized in any contract over two years. Falsified time sheets were involved. Robinson told Randy Ellis they were filled out by a school administrative employee who was his “live-in girlfriend” at the time.

Robinson was paid overtime for responding to alarms at the school. Superintendent Bradley Richards told auditors he entered into a agreement to also pay Robinson approximately four hours of overtime

for various routine duties. “The overtime pay had no specific assigned duties or hours,” the audit notes. “The overtime pay was in addition to regular pay, the pay for ‘Routes,’ and the pay for alarm responses.”

Thus, Robinson received more than double his annual contracted salary. In December 2014, he was paid for 115 hours of overtime. Time sheets often indicated Robinson worked from 6:30 a.m. until as late as 12:30 a.m. The audit notes this occurred even as Robinson was also “employed full time with the Town of Spencer” and simultaneously claiming to work 40-hour-plus weeks there almost every week. There’s more. Richards was given a $19,220 raise and stipends of $600 not authorized by contract, a violation of state law. He also spent $25,500 for a football camp without board approval, and the district took more than a year to pay that bill.

The district paid $2,513 over two years to provide Richards a phone that was used only 21 minutes in 2012. Richards said he doesn’t know who has the phone. The school simultaneously paid Richards another $100 per month for a phone allowance.

The district paid $3,595 total for a cellphone for Lisa Nanney when she served as school board president because Nanney “did not have a phone, email or internet connection.” Yet the district paid for Nanney’s phone for 14 months after her term as board president ended, including six months when Nanney was no longer a board member.

The daughter of one school board member was hired as a substitute teacher in violation of Crooked Oak’s anti-nepotism policy and paid excess wages while working more days as a substitute than allowed by school policy.

In 2013, one teacher was paid $10,000 for extra duty assignments instead of the $1,000 authorized by contract. The teacher apparently said nothing, and school officials didn’t bother to seek repayment once the error was noted.

According to the audit, school officials destroyed credit card records, and destroyed logs showing which staffers used school credit cards. Mileage on school suburbans was not tracked.

The school paid for a Wi-Fi device ultimately used by the middle school principal for two years. In the 2015 budget year, auditors found the device “showed usage on 331 days, occurring mostly on weekends, during early morning and late evening hours, and during holidays.” Three such devices each cost the school $540 annually; it appears none is actually used for work.

State auditors noted Crooked Oak’s separate, annual independent audits for 2013, 2014 and 2015 “documented many” of the aforementioned problems. Management “was made aware of these issues” and claimed to be taking corrective action.

“However, in many instances the corrective action was not actually implemented.”

Many Oklahomans are skeptical that increased school funding will actually reach the classroom. Crooked Oak is Exhibit A.