By: Jesse Hathaway | October 16, 2013, Media Trackers
Cleveland Heights-University Heights City School District seeks higher taxes, and Ohio Auditor Dave Yost has called for several former district employees to repay thousands of dollars in public funds they stole or misspent during the past two years.
State investigators concluded the school district’s lax bookkeeping processes are illegal, as “it is not possible to determine if the expenditures were made for a proper public purpose.”
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“The failure to maintain adequate support for expenditures could result in a loss of accountability over the District’s finances, making it difficult to identify errors which could go undetected, and possibly result in expenditures that are not for a proper public purpose,” the auditor’s report added.
Auditors also found that the district’s financial statements were often erroneous, as $6,118,817 in funds were posted to incorrect accounts.
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Additionally, Cleveland Heights-University Heights City School District shifted a total of $13,078,638 between several internal accounts in the past fiscal year without required documentation or approval from the Board of Education.
Citing failing educational outcomes in the school system, district officials claim that a planned $156.3 million renovation project is necessary. In August, Board of Education president Ron Register told Northeast Ohio Media Group reporter Bruce Geiselman that the district has “recognized that our facilities didn’t support the kind of learning we expect to be able to do with our students as we move into the 21st century.”The Cleveland Heights-University Heights school district has requested a bond levy which would send residents’ property tax bills soaring.