District 150 has just released a 
statement (reprinted below) and a copy of the audit by Clifton Gunderson of the District’s Grade School Activity Funds.
DISTRICT STATEMENT – For Immediate Release – Wednesday, April 29, 2009
- First, we need to clarify that Julie McArdle was not fired. Her contract was terminated without cause, pursuant to her employment contract.
- The Board of Education and Administration stand behind their decision to terminate Principal Julie McArdle’s contract without cause. As an employer, we are bound to personnel laws that prohibit us from discussing or outlining reasons behind the decision to terminate her contract.
- Regarding financial reviews – as part of routine procedures, our district used an outside accounting firm to conduct random, routine financial reviews of school activity funds. These reviews occur on a rotating basis every three-to-four years at all of our schools. We also request a review of these funds each time a new principal is named at a school or a building is closed.
- On April 24, 2009 – (last Friday) – a police report was filed because 2007-2008 Lindbergh MS financial records are missing. These documents were reviewed in the summer of 2008 by the accounting firm during a routine review of the fund, which found no misuse of the school’s funds.
- District staff members are diligently working with multiple sources to find documentation, receipts and statements that will assist in the reconstruction of the missing Lindbergh 2007-2008 financial documents. We are also hoping for a rapid conclusion of the Peoria Police Department’s investigation into our two filed reports.
- Regarding the use of personal credit cards and District issued credit cards:
- It is routine practice for school or District personnel to use a personal credit card to purchase items for our students, classrooms or other needed supplies, so long as appropriate and detailed documentation is kept.
- There are currently nine different district-issued credit card accounts. The statements for these accounts are reviewed by the Business Manager and payments are processed by the District.
- A decision had been made to recommend the termination of Mrs. McArdle’s contract prior to receiving any allegations of misconduct under the Illinois whistleblowers act.
My take: The report from Clifton Gunderson is not exactly a clean bill of health. Notice this statement near the end:
The above procedures were performed at the request of the Controller/Treasurer of the District. We make no representation regarding the sufficiency of the procedures for any purpose. We were not engaged to and did not conduct an examination, the objective of which would be the expression of an opinion of the financial statements of the Student Activity Funds of Lindbergh Middle School. Had we performed additional procedures, matters might have come to our attention that would be reported to the District.
So, if I’m reading this right, they’re not offering an opinion of the financial statements. In fact, given the parameters of what they were asked to do, it’s unlikely that they could have detected any fraud that might have been perpetrated, unless someone had actually written “stolen funds” in the ledger or on the memo line of the check. They pulled 20 disbursements at random and found two that had no supporting documentation. That’s ten percent of a random sampling that were defective. Shouldn’t that have been a tip off to the Controller/Treasurer that the controls in place were deficient?
As for the statement from the District, the last point is the most interesting. According to their statement, the decision had been made to terminate McArdle’s contract “prior to receiving any allegations of misconduct under the Illinois whistleblowers act.” This is pretty shaky. Obviously it’s designed to try to absolve the board of any impropriety; it says, “hey, we didn’t know anything about the charges against Mary Davis before we decided to terminate McArdle, so we should be held harmless.” But they did know about the charges before they voted to terminate the contract. The police reports were made on Friday, and the termination took place on Monday. Once they heard the charges against Davis, they could have held off and investigated the matter first. Instead, they went ahead and terminated the contract for reasons they cannot publicly by law disclose.
Why should they have held off? Because Davis is McArdle’s superior, and it’s most likely that the information on which the board based their termination decision was evaluative information received from Mary Davis and her supporters. If Davis were involved in wrongdoing as alleged, it stands to reason that she would have tried to keep that information from coming to light. One way would be to undermine the potential whistleblower (McArdle) and try to get her discharged. Caution should have been the order of the day.
I was just wandering through the board meeting minutes from April 6 and I see a FOIA was requested by Julie McArdle on February 27. Wonder what that was about…..
teachingrocks — interesting extended time span from February 27, 2009 to April 6, 2009. You can always FOIA a copy of anyone’s FOIA request and/or the documents anyone actually FOIA’d.
Could it be that all those EMAILs that Mrs. McArdle referenced in her lawsuit came from her FOIA request? As has been previously stated-Mrs. McArdle did not dive into shark infested waters without a shark cage. LOL
I found this to be interesting in the board minutes: Leave of Absence
Administrative
Hubbard, Kristie 08-25-09 – 06-30-10
I thought she resigned. Why would this be on the board minutes for April 6, 2009?
She was the assistant principal at Manual.
One more thought–I keep thinking it will be my last on this issue: First of all, I’m sure someone from admin or the BOE is reading what we write on this and several other blogs. At least, I would assume that Jim hasn’t changed his reading habits. Anyway they must know that the documents posted on this blog raise many legitimate questions–and that many of us have come to some very negative conclusions about Davis’ financial dealings and about her connection to McArdle’s firing. If Mary Davis is a valued employee and if she is innocent of these charges of misuse of money and misuse of her authority, I would think that some of the answers to these questions would be very forthcoming–especially, with regard to the financial situation. Surely, they wouldn’t let her reputation become eroded day after day without speaking out–not just claiming her innocence but with some very believable facts proving her innocence.
By now, they should be able to state very clearly whether or not the Discover card was Davis’ or Lindbergh’s. They should be able to state that Davis did (or did not) turn in receipts for each of the purchases paid for by the $4,002 lump sum paid to the Discover card. If the district has definitive proof that Davis is innocent of all (or any) these accusations, then the district should speak up now. They might not owe the public anything, but they should owe Davis that “courtesy.” Since they aren’t forthcoming, we are left to think the worst.
Serenity: No, I think Kristie took a leave of absence. She is presently working for Two Rivers. I wasn’t aware the leave was for two-years, but apparently so. Question: Is the District obligated to reinstate an administrator after the leave of absence?
I understood that Kristie was not reassigned as an administrator. I thought she was told she could apply for admin. positions but ultimately she was reassigned as a teacher, unlike other administrators like Lobdale (sp) when Blaine shut down. They gave him another admin. position.
Sharon, I am not sure about your question, it may be in the board policies.
I thought you could only be granted a one-year leave of absence. I thought she went to work for REMAX.
Relle. Yes, she did go to work for Remax (or at least a realtor). I find this very interesting. I looked at the policy and it said to refer to the union agreement. Not sure if leaves are different for administrators.
Maybe she wanted to wait until Hinton was gone to come back.
I know that Kristie is working for Two Rivers (maybe real estate, too, as that was what I thought she was planning to do when an administrative position was not offered to her). But I know she has been at Peoria High doing Two Rivers Workshops for teachers.
Serenity, seems like it.
Agenda
10. CHANGE TO BOARD POLICY
Proposed Action: That this be the first reading of changes to Board of Education Policy 7:50 Students, School Admissions and Student Transfers and Policy 8:22 Community Relations, Building Rental Philosophy.
Does anyone know what they are changing regarding Policy 7:50?
MAWB— I have heard that that particular policy is about boundary waivers and such. Apparently they are going to make boundary waivers a thing of the past, but it will, ultimately, be up to each individual principal. My take is that students will be allowed into the schools on the north side only IF they were good students on the near-south side of town.
After further review—
The policy is about allowing the transfer of students in and out of the district and, specifically, about the transfer of students from the Edison program (can only transfer at teh end of the current school year) and VHECEC (can only transfer at the end of the 1st semester).
Leaves are granted in 1-year increments for a maximum of 2 years. At the end of that time, if the individual wishes to return to work, their previous position is not guaranteed, but they will be placed in a comparable position – if available – or a position for which they are qualified. If they are not planning to return, they have to notify the district by the middle of March that they will not return for the upcoming school term.
Another Sam’s Club Discover card question: Go to PMIdentity.com. Several charges to this company appear on the charge card. Just curious as to why this service would be necessary to Lindbergh.
Sharon, I did go to PMIdentity.com and found that it is a company that investigates identity theft. Why would Mary Davis be charging anything to them on behalf of Lindbergh? Has she been a victim of identity theft? What is going on here? Did the Lindbergh banners OR money for the banners ever get recovered? They were to have been ordered and paid for at the end of last year by guess who? Ever check to see how much those banners cost? WHEW! BIG BUCKS…..
sayitain’tso! Just wanted some verification that that is what the PMIdentity is all about. There is also a charge to PMProtection–something like that.
About the banners–there is a charge on the Discover card to Signs Now for $940–are those banners? What do you mean by asking if the banners or the money was ever recovered? What kind of banners? Just too many weird questions keep coming up.
I was just rewatching a video from WMBD about this case. When they show the credit card, the number is clearly visible for all to see. It starts with 601137 which, on May 1st, Easy to Determine posted this link which states any 601137 card is a business account.
http://samsclubanswercenter.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/330/kw/discover%20business%20credit/r_id/100001
A little late but please all interested in 150 issues (especially school closings), come to Godfather’s at 6 p.m. tonight.
Teachingrocks: Good sleuthing–if this is a business account, when will District 150 recant its earlier statements about only 10 credit cards being issued–and I think we were to assume that one of them wasn’t issued to Davis. I wouldn’t have Stacey Shangraw’s job for all the tea in China or money in the activity fund at Lindbergh.
According to the Channel 31 report “There are currently nine different district-issued credit card accounts. The statements for these accounts are reviewed by the Business Manager and payments are processed by the District.”
Does that mean only nine cards or nine different types? Either way a direct answer would have been required: Yes, Mary Davis has a district credit card or No, Mary Davis does not have a district credit card.
I’m convinced at this point the credit card was a business card. My next questions are: Did the district apply for this card or did Mary Davis and just use the school information? Also, are the card’s purchases automatically rung up as tax-exempt? If so, the state of Illinois needs to be going after someone for tax fraud. I’ll also ask the universal question—why is Mary Davis still working in full capacity during this fiasco?!?
I’ll see you at Godfathers, Sharon.
Teachingrocks: I need to stay off the blog–everyone is safe for a few hours as I’ll be leaving soon. However, I do not believe that every purchase would be rung up as tax-exempt–maybe at Sam’s Club, but none of the purchases were made at Sam’s. I would think the tax-exempt number would be requested each time. I’m not sure how tax-exempt purchases would work at Amazon.com.
If this is a business card, then I would think there should be no personal purchases and no personal payments–all should be District 150 authorized, right? Therefore, the Toyota bill after the $4,000 is definitely to be questioned–and probably many other purchases. Of course, there are the late charges, the high interest, and the cash advances, and the reward money (who got that)–surely the district wouldn’t allow late payments, etc. Yes, why is Davis working during the investigation?
Picketers will once again be walking before the Board of Education meeting tomorrow night–5:15 p. Anyone who wishes to protest (and, if possible, speak to the board) about school closings or any other issue, please come join with others of like mind.
150 expects integrity and ethical behavior.
According to Websters- integrity 1:firm adherence to a code of esp. moral or artistic values : INCORRUPTIBILITY
Apply this to the McArdle /Davis situation. McArdle loses her job and Davis is still working. So much for expecting integrity and ethical behavior. No good deed goes unpunished.
This is off this topic–but is District 150, so I’m throwing it on:
Apparently, District 150 sees the need to decrease the enrollment for summer school for high school students. Therefore, only 32 students can take each course traditionally offered in summer school. A lottery will be held on May 20 to pick 8 students per high school for each course to be offered. Does anyone see any problems with this plan?
Is it fair? When I taught summer school, it was common to have more than one class for each course because there might be 90 students signing of for English 3, for example. Now it appears that only 32 of those wanting to take a particular course will be allowed to do so. For one thing, 32 is too large a class size for summer school. Why May 20 for the lottery—students who fail second semester classes won’t even know if they failed until after finals. Why would anyone sign up for summer school if he/she still had a chance of passing a course? Frequently, the “surprise” failures at the end of the year might be seniors who can take a class in summer school so that they can receive diplomas before September. The lottery will be over—they will be out of luck. Unless, of course, there are exceptions made to the policy—not unusual and not a good idea. This decision will have an effect on class size for the next school year. For example, students who have failed English 3 (and didn’t go to summer school) will be taking both English 3 and English 5 their junior year. These “failures” haven’t been counted in class count when deciding how many sections of a particular course to offer. Classes will be more overcrowded than usual if students can’t go to summer school to make up failed courses. The usual group of non-thinkers who decided this plan have no idea what can of worms they have just opened. Enrolling students for summer school—and getting them to pay—is already a major headache. What if a student wins the lottery, but never pays the tuition and/or doesn’t show up—both will happen? Will there then be a standby list for students who didn’t win the lottery? This plan is fraught with opportunities for angry students and angry parents. Who would want to teach summer school?
Does the board ever meet without Ken Hinton so they could discuss his removal without him being present?
Sharon you seem to be under the misguided notion that D150 exists to educate children.
That above is not from me… Golly I love it though
Full time teachers get a 23% bonus increase in pay for teaching summer school at ICC… not so at District 150?
The board had plenty of meeting without Ken Hinton when he was home with his bad back. It didn’t appear to make a difference.