ANAHEIM : $65,000 Missing From Esperanza High Fund

Police and school officials have discovered that approximately $65,000 is missing from the Associated Student Body fund at Esperanza High School.

An independent audit of the ASB books completed last October revealed that some money was misappropriated during the 1992-93 school year, said Kim Stallings, assistant superintendent of the Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District, said at a meeting of the school board Tuesday night.

The school district “immediately reported this to the Anaheim police, who encouraged the auditor to continue its review and share any findings with the police,” Stallings said.

The examination of ASB records by police and the auditor is nearly complete, he said, but there is no evidence indicating who is responsible for the missing money.

The missing money was part of nearly $600,000 in income the ASB received in 1992-93 from a variety of sources, including ticket sales and concessions at athletic events, sale of T-shirts and other fund-raising events. Much of the income from these sources is cash.

The auditor’s report turned up several insufficient bookkeeping practices that have made it impossible for police and the auditor to trace the money.

Among the practices discovered during the audit were:

* Deposits were not made on a timely basis.

* Entries into the accounting records were not done promptly. For example, revenue from football games in October and November, 1992, was not recorded until January, 1993.

* Checks were not listed sequentially.

* Not all checks were recorded. About $26,000 in checks that cleared the bank are unaccounted for in the financial records.

According to Stallings, students handle most of the cash from fund-raisers but are not involved in maintaining the financial records for the fund.

“We don’t think that any students were involved in any way with the taking of money,” Stallings said.

The school has a part-time bookkeeper assigned to the ASB fund, with the activities director responsible for managing the fund and monitoring income and expenditures. The activities director for the 1992-93 school year resigned at the end of that year. He is not considered a suspect by police, school officials said.

The current activities director, Rick Martens, was not at the school during the period the money disappeared. Martens has implemented a series of procedures recommended by the auditor to guard against future losses, school officials said.

The improved accounting system includes issuing receipts at all fund-raisers, reconciling cash receipts to bank deposits and installing a new computer system that does not allow entries to be erased or changed.

The district’s insurance policy will cover the loss, less a $500 deductible.