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CHATSWORTH : Auditors Probe Possible Theft of Junior High Funds

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Los Angeles city school officials have begun an audit at a Chatsworth junior high school to determine whether thousands of dollars have disappeared from student body funds supervised by a campus employee who has failed to report to work for weeks.

A finance team from the Los Angeles Unified School District’s budget office has been stationed at Lawrence Junior High School for the past two weeks, scrutinizing campus ledgers to find out if revenue generated by the student store and various campus fund-raisers is missing, according to school officials.

The financial review began after a district finance manager made a routine visit to Lawrence and alerted officials to possible accounting irregularities that appeared “serious enough to warrant an audit,” said district Budget Director Henry Jones.

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Lawrence’s student body finance manager, Placido Cantollas, had not shown up for work since the beginning of February--at first because of district-imposed furlough days and an illness, but finally without explanation, Principal Tony Ventresca said.

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