Audit Prompts Search for Missing PTA Funds : Education: Approximately $6,000 is feared lost. The Sheriff’s Department has been called in to investigate.

An audit of a PTA chapter in Vista failed to account for about $6,000 and has sparked an investigation by the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department, officials said Thursday.

The investigation is focused on the bank accounts and financial books maintained by the Casita Elementary School Parent-Teacher Assn.

PTA officials were mostly silent about the matter, saying only that they asked for the investigation by the sheriff’s fraud unit after an internal audit was unable to reconcile the books, and that several thousand dollars couldn’t be accounted for.

Fraud Detective Chuck Seiber said that “around $6,000, give or take, is missing.”

“When the district (PTA) auditor found the discrepancies, they filed a report with us. They tried to find records, but apparently some are missing and they’re trying to reconstruct them,” Seiber said.

“That’s one of the problems: finding out how much money was supposed to be there, and where it went. But until we get more evidence to review and put together what amounts to a jigsaw puzzle, we won’t know what we have,” he said.

“At this point, there are no particular individuals we’re looking at. Once we get the evidence put together, we will have to determine which people may be responsible for the money we’re looking for.”

Sgt. Ken Crossman, who heads the sheriff’s investigative unit in Vista, said that “there are a lot of allegations, but not a whole lot of substantiation. It’s going to require a lot of follow-up.”

Kathy Cates, director of San Diego County’s 9th District PTA, said she wasn’t even sure if the matter had yet been turned over for criminal investigation, “but if there are gross discrepancies in the books, that’s the place it would be referred to.”

Cates said she wouldn’t discuss any specifics about the missing money “because we don’t want to jeopardize any investigation. But yes, there are concerns.”

Maureen Huitt, who heads the PTA branches in the Vista Unified School District, declined to comment, and Margie Dambach, president of the Casita PTA, could not be reached.

A spokesman for the school district said that while school officials are concerned, the PTA operates independent of the school system and any money that was missing belonged to the PTA, not the district.