Larry Lewis might need to eat more crow in Lancaster

The Lancaster, Texas, school superintendent claimed a year ago, after the suburban Dallas school district was discovered to have a big financial shortfall, that it was just a matter of money not being transferred properly, not put in the right place, and not properly documented.

Well, Larry, you may need to retract that statement in the future. Eugene Smith, your chief financial officer at that time, has pled guilty to illegally using a credit card from a couple of jobs back, when he worked for Washington, D.C., schools:

On September 25, 2001, the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) received a complaint from Eugene P. Smith, Director, Internal Audit, District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS), who reported accounting irregularities pertaining to the New Vistas Public Preparatory Charter School (New Vistas). The charter for New Vistas was revoked on September 6, 2001. Smith, who had the responsibility for closing out New Vistas’ financial accounts, accepted responsibility for all of the charter school bank accounts. A joint investigation conducted by Special Agent Kerthalia W. Peavely, OIG, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, disclosed that Smith, without authority, closed one of the accounts, transferred the funds into a new account, designated himself the sole signatory, and obtained a business check/debit card.

On July 31, 2002, Smith’s DCPS employment was terminated due to a Reduction in
Force; however, he did not relinquish possession of the debit card. Between April 2003
and July 2003, Smith expended $46,742.94 in cash as a result of 114 transactions, using
the debit card from the New Vistas bank account. Smith closed out a second account,
transferred $109,861 into a new account, and again made himself sole signatory.
However, Smith made no withdrawals from this account. The DCPS Office of the
General Counsel has initiated efforts to obtain possession of these funds.

At the least, somebody needs to call the Texas Education Agency, especially since Larry’s old friend, Shirley Neely, is no longer in charge there, and tell it to come back up here and it or the Legislative Budget Bureau start doing some more auditing.

And, although LISD supposedly doesn’t have a lot of credit or debit cards, has the district done a recent audit?