School system to be audited

JENNINGS, Okla. (AP) -- The State Auditor and Inspector's Office will begin looking into the financial records of a Pawnee County school district next month.

An investigator will be sent to Jennings when a current audit is finished, said Susan Putnam, the office administrator for Auditor and Inspector Clifton Scott.

State Superintendent Sandy Garrett requested the audit in a Nov.

13 letter to Scott. She said she became concerned after reading a report from the Pawnee County Sheriff's Office following a preliminary inquiry.

The school's finances could be in "serious critical situation," based on Undersheriff Don Harzman's report, Garrett said.

Jennings is a kindergarten through eighth-grade school with about 170 students some 30 miles west of Tulsa.

School board President Jody Taulman termed the audit a routine move that is needed when a new superintendent is hired. Ron Wolf was hired in August to replace Janet Timmons, who resigned to get married, Taulman said.

"I'm not concerned," Taulman said. "We do have new people, and we need to get back on track."

The school lost two office staff members who handled the school's finances, Taulman said.

Three days later, the school board put Wolf on temporary medical leave. Taulman said Wolf reported that he was under a doctor's care and would not return to work until the doctor released him.

Wolf said this week in a telephone interview that he is under a doctor's care for a swollen prostate and bladder infection. Wolf said he told the school board when he was hired that he was weak in school finance, but he said he was assured that the school had experienced staff.

Board Vice President Gerald Sholes said the school "is not out of money" and that he didn't think an audit will turn up "irregularities."

In a telephone interview from his Cleveland home, Wolf said he "can't put a finger on what I came across" but he believed it to be "honest mistakes."

He subsequently suspended with pay the two staff members who handled school finances, and the school board approved the move, he said.

Wolf told Harzman in early November that he believed his telephone calls were monitored. The undersheriff's report said Wolf's office was checked for listening devices on his phone or computer.

With Sheriff Dwight Woodrell, Harzman said tests showed that the school's paging system had a mute switch that would allow people in administrative offices to listen in on a room without being detected. And a locked school bus barn had a phone that enabled overhearing of conversations in the administrative office, Harzman said.

He also said Wolf alleged that some school employees received raises without school board approval. Harzman said he had been unable to determine that any crime had been committed, pending an audit of school financial records.

Taulman and Sholes said the school board named Richard Teter as its assistant chief financial officer to oversee the school until Wolf is released back to work by his doctor.