Peggy Gaskill, a bookkeeper at Wicomico High School, was terminated in June 2009 for inappropriate behavior and failure to comply with Wicomico County Board of Education procedures.
Discrepancies in school accounts that were under her control were reported to the Wicomico County Board of Education’s Finance Department, which conducted an internal investigation. An independent certified public accounting firm, TGM Group, LLC, was immediately contracted to perform an “Agreed-Upon Procedures” audit of the school’s books and records.
Board staff contacted the Wicomico Bureau of Investigation and provided a copy of the final report issued by TGM Group, LLC. At that point, the investigation was in the hands of the Sheriff’s Department and the State’s Attorney’s Office. The Board is cooperating fully with the investigation.
Superintendent of Schools Dr. John E. Fredericksen said Monday, “We take our fiscal responsibility seriously. When there are allegations of wrongdoing, we take every step to investigate the matter and take action appropriate to any wrongdoing.”
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20 comments:
geez joe , this woman has 39 theft scheme charges...how much did she steal? she is as bad as ray lewis !! i hope she does more time then the other one that ripped off our county and got a slap on the hand
How much is hiring an outside auditor going to cost the county? Probably less than the salary of the auditor they let go...and still haven't replaced. Oh, and here's a thought.....if they hadn't let the auditor go - would she have discovered the irregularities earlier?
It's a real shame that a few "rotten" bookkeepers give the rest of us a bad name. I've been a bookkeeper for 35 or so years and I would never dream of pulling any kind of a theft scheme on my employer(s).
How long has she been doing this I wonder. She was there in the early 1990s and she was old then.
Audit the BOE just like the council audited the WCLCB!
will she be given a slap on the wrist with minumum jail time with work release in the school system and ring bells too.
The sad reality of fraud perpetrators is that most places of employment do not push full prosecution due to public relations issues so the perpetrator moves on and continues their scheme.
8:00~The last thing the ole politicians want is any kind of potential fraud dug up to effect their office and rock the boat. Instead they choose the reactive response to hide the dirty little secrets. Big men-small grapes.
I don't think they had an auditor on staff. Thought they always used outside auditors. Where was the check & balance with principal?
How she get away with it so long? Who is auditing her reports. The taxpayers deserve an explanation
I hope Mr. Hughes got reprimanded for this as well. He is the principal and is responsible for checking the accounts.
Oh, that's right, he is a card holding member of the NAACP.
How sad that she is ripping off the profits for all the special needs students at WiHi who work very hard raising money .....very disturbing to me.
Wasn't there a high up at the Board who recently did something along the same lines? Weren't workers being paid by the Bd. sent by this person to work on the person's land? And didn't this person hire someone at a huge salary to do a job she isn't qualified to do? Fiscal responsibility at its finest.
7:31pm-I believe this bookkeeper was there for quite sometime. So how many principals could this go back on that should have been keeping a closer eye.
7:36 is right. The amount of money she is charged with taking is a drop in the bucket compared to what she has taken. Do an audit for the years she has been there.
11:03PM Can you tell us who the central office person was who had people working at their house while the board was paying for it.
Acountability at the Board (Ha Ha Ha) I work for a manufaturing company and we have an Accountant and a Comptroller to do our checks and balances. My recollection is the Board has several accountants and a Comptoller making big bucks
Arent they doing monthly or quarterly checks to make sure checks and balances are being done.
But oh yes we turned a blind eye to the appointment of our Treasury Secretary ( remember he forgot to report $100000) on his taxes. So once again we go after the little person and therefore the Board comes out smeeling like roses.
Not only should Gaskill be gone but heads need to roll at the Board Office
Dr. Fredericksen started out suggesting he would be eliminating central office positions. Like the rest of them, he adds a position every time someone doesn't like the job the person has or complains that a new responsibility has been added. Even he has to see that many of the jobs at the central office do not need to be full time. More responsibility is added to teachers and administrators every day. It just means more unpaid hours, nights and weekends, doing school work. Years ago it was just PTA that required nights away from home, but now we have Math Night, Science Night, Family Night, Spaghetti Dinner Night, School Fundraiser at McDonald's Night, and so on. Other nights are spent checking papers, doing lesson plans, calling parents, making bulletin boards, and a thousand other tasks. How many people at the central office spend evenings and weekends doing their jobs? If they do, it happens very rarely and they get comp time. If it looks like they might get an additional task, an assistant is hired. What a racket.
If the supt. or a board member would watch the public relations duo for one week, change would be made. Two fulltime people paid to do one parttime job? Dr. Fred. has a lot of nerve talking about fiscal responsibility. A whole list of programs that involve kids may be eliminated or cut, but no mention of cutting a PR job. Heck, they just made the parttime one fulltime. Just keep the one of them who works and get rid of the one who does nothing. Never happen.
Shame on you Ms. Gaskill! You knew better.
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