Pupils at St Patrick’s College Wellington will not miss out on any activities as a result of a $100,000 theft, Chris McCarthy, Chairman of the Board of Trustees said.
David Don, the former St Patrick’s College Wellington executive officer is accused of stealing money from the College over a period of four years.
According to Mr McCarthy, Don had been taking increasingly higher amounts of money allocated for specific items and using the money for his own purposes.
The annual audits did not show gaps as the final spreadsheets were balanced, McCarthy said.
Acting Rector Wayne Mills said the school was confident all the money would be recovered.
The school would now ensure all invoices were for what they stated they were, he said.
“There was an abuse of trust, and you think things put in front of you are correct and you’re signing them off.”
Mr McCarthy commented that the Education Ministry may need to consider changing the “scope in the brief that school auditors are given. I think any school is probably at risk that relies solely on an annual audit”.
St Patrick’s had now laid a formal complaint with police about the incident, after weeks of searching through school records.
Source: Dominion Post