County alters checking procedure to combat embezzlement

JACKSON, Mo. -- Cape Girardeau County officials have changed checking procedures to guard against future embezzlements after a bookkeeper in the juvenile office was charged with stealing more than $97,000 in state grant money.

Checks made out to school districts to fund the alternative schools for troubled students will be mailed directly from the county treasurer's office to district offices rather than funneled through the juvenile office in Cape Girardeau, county Auditor H. Weldon Macke said Monday.

Macke said the new procedure provides a better safeguard against embezzlement. "This is the way it should have been done," he said.

But Macke said he and other county officials never envisioned that a bookkeeper in the juvenile office would embezzle the grant checks. "We thought we had a pretty foolproof system," he said.

School districts served by the grant would each send a monthly bill to the juvenile office. The juvenile office bookkeeper then would send the bills to the county auditor's office for approval. The county treasurer then would write a check to that particular school district and send it to the juvenile office bookkeeper who was supposed to mail it to the district.

The monthly bills will still come through the juvenile office under new accounting procedures, just not the payments to the school districts.

County officials said they never figured they'd be dealing with a dishonest bookkeeper or that checks made out to school districts could be deposited in an individual's ATM account.

Randy Rhodes, chief juvenile officer, said he never realized that the money wasn't getting to the schools.

Larry Bock, 1st District commissioner, said tighter accounting is needed. "Somebody needs to do a little more auditing, a little more bookkeeping," he said.

Combating crime

Still, he said it's hard to stop a committed thief. "If somebody wants to embezzle money, they can do it for a period of time until they get caught," Bock said.

Robin Whitson, 38, of Cape Girardeau was charged on Sept. 11 with depositing 10 checks meant for the Cape Girardeau and Jackson public schools into her personal account at the Cape Regional Credit Union.

The embezzlement occurred over the course of the last 12 months, dating back to last September. Each of the checks were deposited at the credit union's ATM. All but one was intended for the Cape Girardeau School District. The other was a $6,292 check for the Jackson School District, said Lt. David James, chief of detectives with the Cape Girardeau County Sheriff's Department.

James said Whitson had gambling debts which may have led her to steal the money.

"I think gambling got her in trouble," he told county commissioners last week.

Bock said the Cape Girardeau School District is the real victim of the crime because it didn't get the money it was owed. "The school system right now is the one left holding the bag," Bock said.

Mark Bowles, superintendent of the Cape Girardeau public schools, likes the county's new checking policy because of its safeguards.

"That sounds great," he said. "It sounds fiscally responsible."

mbliss@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 123