Poland PTO repays money flagged in audit

By DENISE DICK

denise_dick@vindy.com

poland

The middle-school PTO has repaid about $3,792 a state audit said it had kept illegally.

The money went to the middle-school principal’s fund and will be used to pay for activities that the PTO had wanted to use the money for, said Superintendent Dr. Robert Zorn.

“It’s a win-win,” he said.

Last November, the state auditor issued a finding for recovery against the PTO for more than $3,700 that it collected through athletic-ticket sales to middle-school events in the 2007-08 school year.

It was part of an arrangement made by now-retired school-district administrators and the PTO many years ago, the superintendent said. The PTO sold tickets at athletic events in exchange for keeping half of the money collected. The PTO used the money for school-related programs and activities.

The money, which was accounted for, according to the audit, should have gone directly to the school district.

Atty. Jonathan Schoenike, who represents the PTO, confirmed that the PTO paid the money to the school district. The issue of the money collected at athletic events for the 2008-09 school year hasn’t been resolved, he said.

Zorn said that’s because the auditor’s office conducts audits for one year at a time.

“We took the position that we can’t do anything until the auditor’s office is done with the audit,” he said. “If in the next audit they’re cited again, we’ll do the same thing.”

As part of a resolution passed by the school board earlier this month, $1,350 of the money repaid by the PTO will go toward the middle-school trip to Washington, D.C.

The remainder, about $2,442, will pay for the school’s academic-awards dinner.

Those were the activities that the PTO wanted to fund using the money, the superintendent said.

Zorn said that the previous arrangement with the PTO was made because of difficulty in finding people to sell tickets. Now the district is paying people including school-district personnel to do the job.

The money collected goes into the school principal’s fund, and the ticket sellers are paid from that fund, he said.