APS "finds" $16M

Or, APS "lost" $16M, and it finally turned up again, depending
on your perspective. The view from the Journal is, it's a "find"
link

""I am quite frankly embarrassed on behalf of the district,"
Superintendent Winston Brooks said in a Tuesday
afternoon news conference."

The District, according to the paper, said the error that created
the situation could have occurred as long ago as 2002, and
remained undiscovered for seven years.

The discrepancy was first discovered a year ago, but not made
public until now. It has taken APS the intervening year, to find
the missing money.

State Education Secretary Veronica Garcia, offered an
excuse for the APS, positing;

"... it appears that turnover among APS staff led to the error. "

Yeah, either that or, a lack of standards and accountability lie at
the heart of the problem.

As recently as March, 2008, an independent audit of APS'
Finance Division revealed;

• a lack of and enforcement of financially sound policies and procedures,
• insufficient training and staffing,
• inadequate financial reporting, and
• poor implementation of financial management software.

These finding reveal problems greater than "turnover" among
the staff.

When asked if these auditors found criminal misconduct in
the APS Finance Division, APS refuses to answer the question.
Which leads me to believe that they will be covering up any
criminal misconduct in the APS Finance Division, the same
as they did with the felony criminal misconduct in the APS
Peanut Butter Gate scandal in their Police Department.

The cover up will continue until statutes of limitation have expired,
and senior APS administrators can no longer be held accountable
for even felony criminal misconduct.

APS steadfastly refuses to even discuss the idea of an impartial
standards and accountability audit, because such an audit would
illuminate the seriousness of the widespread and deeply rooted
culture in the leadership of the APS that enables the lack of
standards and accountability to remain unaddressed and
unmitigated.

The M.O. of the leadership of the APS is to try to fix problems
without ever admitting that there are problems. An impartial
standards and accountability audit would reveal all of their
problems once and for all.

The revelation would make the problems easier to correct,
but then individual administrators would be held accountable
for their conduct and competence; an outcome that the
leadership of the APS will never allow.

School Board head honcho Paula Maes, stated publicly
that she would never allow any audit that would name the
names of incompetent and/or corrupt APS administrators.
link

The problems will be addressed, maybe, but those responsible
for the problems will never be named, nor held accountable
for their (in)actions.