Suzanne Stewart
Staff Writer
The Pocahontas County Board of Education held a special meeting Friday, January 9, to discuss a recent audit that was done at Pocahontas County High School.
Superintendent Dr. Leatha Williams and chief school business officer Sarah Hamilton presented a report to the board in which the audit results were revealed.
Before sharing the results, Williams and Hamilton gave an overview of West Virginia Department of Education Policy 1224.1 which covers the accounting procedures for public schools.
The policy outlines the rules and regulations for handling of all funds that are received at the school level, including breakfast and lunch fees, fundraisers, donations, ticket sales and concession stand funds.
“So, the school principal is responsible for the financial management of the school, not the Pocahontas County Board of Education,” Williams said. “The principal must ensure that all provisions of this manual and local board policies and procedures are complied with; that all accounting records are maintained accurately and that all financial reports are prepared and submitted in a timely fashion.”
Hamilton explained that the audit was ordered after a report was issued December 11 to her and Williams concerning the funds at PCHS. The following day, Hamilton and Williams began an investigation by first visiting local banks and donors to make sure the policy was being followed.
On December 16, Hamilton was joined by director of personnel Dr. Rhonda Combs at PCHS, where they were given access to the school safe.
“The following funds and on-site collections were in the safe – the Turkey Trot, Poinsettia Sales, track donations, Advent calendar funds, Forest Festival travel stipend, robotics, class dues, yearbook sales, powder puff T-shirt sales, National Honor Society dinner collections, science lab fees, SkillsUSA club dues, Christmas T-shirt sales, FFA donations, FFA fruit sales, lunch payments and basketball ticket and concession sales,” Hamilton said.
“Some of those occurred as early as September,” Williams added.
The policy requires that the principal make a daily bank deposit, especially if the take for that day is more than $500. With what was found in the safe, it was determined a deposit had not occurred since the beginning of the 2025-2026 school year.
When reviewing what was found in the safe, Hamilton said there were issues with receipt totals and the amount of money attached to them adding up. There was one case where the receipt for concession stand sales at a football game reported $3,098.38. That number was scratched out replaced by $2,878.30 which was also scratched out.
The final number was $2,879.56 and minus the startup of $450, the total deposited in the safe was $2,429.56.
There was no explanation as to why the numbers were scratched out and whether or not the final count was right or not.
The receipts that are issued with funds require a list be made of how many $1s, $5s, $10s and so forth are collected before the total is added at the bottom.
Hamilton said there was a receipt that recorded 116 $1 bills were collection, however, when she counted the money to verify that, there were only 66 $1 bills present.
Other issues were discovered when the safe was fully analyzed.
“Basketball uniforms were purchased without a signed requisition or a purchase order in place,” Hamilton said. “Additionally, the vendor used was not an active vendor for our school system. A check for the science lab fees was dated September 9, 2025, and the deposit went through the 16th of December.
“The athletic director reported that referees had not been paid and $39,000 was kept in the safe for several weeks, and in some cases, part of the funds had been there for months,” she continued. “I personally took the money to the bank in the last two weeks of December.”
There were also times when money was taken from one fund to reconcile another, leaving the first fund short. A note was found stating the ticket sales from a game was $54 short, so $54 was taken from that night’s concession stand funds to reconcile it.
After these discoveries, Williams and Hamilton had an independent audit done for PCHS. The audit was for July 1, 2024 through December 22, 2025.
Williams and Hamilton shared the results of the audit, which found several areas of concern that need to be corrected.
The auditors found that paperwork was not being filled out properly, such as listing how many of each denomination of bill was collected and the total of each. There were also several times amounts were crossed out and replaced without any explanation.
Regarding bank deposits and funds going back and forth from the bank, the audit not only revealed that deposits were not being made in a timely fashion, but cash taken out of the bank for ticket sales was not returned to the bank between school years.
It was noted that cash was taken out for the ticket sales boxes on August 22, 2024, and it was not returned until August 1, 2025. It was then taken back out on August 19, 2025.
The audit also revealed that there were no copies made of checks before they were deposited in the bank.
Next, they reviewed purchases and purchase orders and discovered that the policy was not being followed regarding purchases of more than $5,000 and backdating of purchases made.
“So, our finding in this section, we noted that purchases over $5,000 were not properly bid out and three quotes were not obtained,” Williams said. “The recommendation is that we follow those guidelines of Policy 8200. We get three quotes when it’s necessary to meet the threshold.
“Continuing on with purchasing orders, they reviewed purchase orders during the audit period of July 1, 2025 through December 22, 2025, and noted there were 627 created during that time frame and 294 of them were backdated to a date that predated the invoice date, however, were actually encumbered in the system well after the order date and in some instances, after the goods were already received,” she added.
Williams and Hamilton also shared a spreadsheet that showed a list of funds, when they were received and when they were deposited, some take more than 100 days to be deposited in the bank from the time of receipt.
After reviewing the audit, Williams explained what will take place to ensure the issue is corrected and will not happen again. First, she and Hamilton have agreed that all the other schools will also undergo audits to see that things are in order there.
“Training will be required for all staff members via Vector or another solution in which everyone will read, train and make sure that they know the appropriate spending protocol,” Williams said. “I’m sure most people do understand the appropriate spending protocol, and we have gotten derelict in doing it because we did have auditing years where we didn’t have these findings, so it’s not that we don’t know.
“Principals and school secretaries will be trained on time management, financial procedures and organizations,” she continued. “They are a team, so they need to understand the policies that regulates them.”
Williams added that she is going to ask principals to try to spread out fundraisers throughout the school year so there will not be an overflow of money coming in at one time.
After the independent audits are done, Williams said there will be another one in July 2026, after a baseline is made by the previous audits.
