The Editorial in Today's Northwest Herald

Here is the text, word for word:

D-158 right to end audit

District 158 spent more than $100,000 and 18 months conducting a forensic audit.

The audit found sloppy bookkeeping and poor management, but no evidence of fraud. Still, the audit was a good idea to restore public trust. We hope that some good comes out of the audit – primarily better management practices.

One positive for the district is that the school officials most responsible for the mismanagement are long gone. The audit perhaps can help current Superintendent John Burkey target trouble spots and make improvements.

Among the issues the audit found was the granting of additional vacation days to four former administrators by a past administrator. The value of the days was $19,619.75. The district also found other overpayments related to retiring and departing administrators because of payroll errors made by district employees. The district should have internal controls in place that do not allow such events to occur in the future.

Another issue in the report was more than $34,000 in unpaid rent since 1995. The contract was between District 158 and the former owners of property on the district’s Harmony Road campus. Former school-board candidate Linda Moore and her family live on the property.

School board member Larry Snow, an ardent critic of other board members, supported a motion to have this information about the rent dropped from the audit report. Moore ran for school board last spring and Snow supported her. Meanwhile, Snow and fellow board member Aileen Seedorf blasted the board’s decision to end the audit. Snow went so far as to say the board was “telling half-truths.” Seedorf called the report a “facade.”

So Snow supports a motion to omit key information that might reflect badly on a political ally and then claims the rest of the board is telling “half-truths?” Snow’s and Seedorf’s hypocrisy is disturbing but not surprising. And their act has gotten very, very old.
(end of editorial)