Birmingham Police are conducting a criminal investigation after an internal Birmingham Public Schools probe uncovered $20,000 in missing funds from the Seaholm Athletic Department.
The district has since fired the Seaholm athletic department employee but has not released the person’s identity.
“The district discovered the situation when we implemented new accounting procedures,” said Marcia Wilkinson, the Director of Community Relations for Birmingham Public Schools. “These new procedures will enable us to monitor our accounts even closer.”
Detective Ron Halcrow of the Birmingham Police Department told the Highlander there were discrepancies in the cash receipts from ticket sales for various school athletic events between August 2006 and December 2008.
“The school district board administration downtown had contacted me for this investigation to proceed with a criminal investigation not just a school termination hearing,” said Halcrow.
The Oakland County prosecutor will review any evidence for possible embezzlement charges Halcrow said.
Halcrow could not confirm that the embezzlement scheme was limited to only one person.
“It could be more than possibly one person involved,” said Halcrow.
Seaholm Athletic Director Aaron Frank and Principal Terry Piper declined comment about information directly relating to the criminal investigation.
Frank told the Highlander that he was disheartened by the situation.
“I can’t imagine anyone else who was more disappointed than I was,” said Frank.
Seaholm principal Terry Piper said that he isn’t as involved in this matter because it is handled at the district level, rather than the school level. Piper also explained that the money earned by the individual athletic departments goes into the district’s general fund of $103 million. After determining how much the athletic department needs, the money is then allocated to the department.
“It’s not like everything that comes into the athletic department stays in the athletic department,” said Piper.
Piper said that the athletic department was not directly hit financially by the $20,000 loss.
“It’s not like [Seaholm’s athletic department] lost, because we didn’t have to cut a sport, or there weren’t some things that we couldn’t do or didn’t do,” said Piper.
“[Birmingham Public Schools] basically just has to accept the fact that it was a loss to them,” said Terry Piper. “They can try to recoup it through the court system,” said Piper.
Piper wants to reassure parents that the money they pay for their children to participate in sports each year is safe.
“This is a one-time thing. We think our security is very strong; there isn’t much we could have done differently so this didn’t happen,” said Piper.
The investigation is expected to be completed in early July, but an exact date is not certain yet.
“It’s kind of a crap shoot,” said Halcrow. “As these things go…there’s a lot of paperwork involved and there’s a lot of going over receipts and numbers and bank accounts, and what was presented to me by the district.”
