When we last left former District 150 Superintendent Kay Royster, she had just been fired from a school district in Missouri. Well, since then, the state has audited the school district. From the July 29 St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

The Jennings School District ran annual deficits of $3 million for four years, mismanaged an expensive plan to provide hand-held computers for students and has many sloppy accounting practices, a state audit released Tuesday found.

The report, by Missouri Auditor Susan Montee, also says the district appears to have paid an excessive severance to former Superintendent Kay Royster, who championed the purchase of 2,572 Palm T/X computers. Montee reports the district didn’t competitively bid for the computers, overspent the $950,000 project budget by $304,000, never hooked up a workable system and had 324 of the computers in storage as of January.

“The units are basically sitting in the classroom unused or seldom used,” Montee said.

Royster announced the mini-computer program in February 2007 as a way to keep the district “on the cutting edge.” But when the board fired her one year later, members cited declining student test scores and the failure to put the devices to effective use.

The audit says the computer overspending is one reason for the annual deficits. Others include an extra $988,000 for nine administrators added mainly by Royster and the $249,709 severance package she obtained in February 2008.

Kalamazoo. Peoria. Jennings. Who will be next?