Fonseca and Sanchez-Macias (Photo / Mario A. Cortez)
A formal State audit has found evidence that two administrators at a local school district may have committed fraud and misappropriation of funds by granting themselves unearned payments and life insurance benefits without proper approval from their board.
The State’s Fiscal Crisis & Management Assistance Team (FCMAT) conducted an extraordinary audit at the request of the San Diego County Office of Education to review actions taken by San Ysidro School District’s former Superintendent Julio Fonseca and Deputy Superintendent Arturo Sanchez-Macias.
“Based on the findings in this report, there is sufficient evidence to demonstrate that fraud, misappropriation of funds, and other illegal fiscal activities may have occurred,” the report concluded.
State Audit Criticized For Using Rumors as Allegations
By Mario A. Cortez
An extraordinary audit report analyzing the San Ysidro School District’s (SYSD) financial mismanagement released last week by the California Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team (FCMAT) is being criticized for containing several inaccurate claims and allegations.
The report, published last week and taken offline the next day, analyzed SYSD’s activities and contracts from 2012 through last year. Among the subjects of this fiscal review were the use of bond funds and the approval of a solar energy contract.
Two former School Board members and a local businessman contacted FCMAT this week to dispute the report’s findings, and have offered information challenging the report’s conclusions.
Manuel Paul (Mario A. Cortez | La Prensa San Diego)
The San Ysidro School District abruptly dropped its lawsuit against one of its former superintendents after having spent more than $480,000 in legal fees to try to recover $211,000 the District wrongly paid him.
The case filed against Manuel Paul in 2015 sought to recovery money paid to him when the District accepted his resignation after he was indicted by a Grand Jury on corruption charges in December 2012. Paul, who was accused of accepting meals from prospective contractors, was indicted along with 14 other school officials and contractors in a wide-ranging corruption scandal that included San Ysidro School District, Sweetwater Union High School District, and Southwestern College.
An Oakland-based community college district may soon be forced to cede power to the state if its Board of Trustees can’t quell concerns about its ability to properly govern the district.
Intervening at the Peralta Community College District, home to four East Bay colleges serving almost 30,000 students, would be a drastic step. Only twice previously has the state chancellor’s office and the systemwide Board of Governors assumed power from a locally-elected governing board: At the City College of San Francisco in 2013 and at Compton College in 2004.
The colleges in Peralta, one of 73 districts in California’s vast 116 community college system, are Laney College and Merritt College in Oakland, Berkeley City College and the College of Alameda.