Financial Audit of PCHS Reveals Major Financial and Policy Discrepancies

At the January 9^th Pocahontas County Board of Education special meeting, Superintendent Dr. Leatha Williams began the meeting by saying that there was nothing that will be revealed at this meeting that cannot be overcome and corrected “with hard work, cooperation and a growth mindset.” She added that revealing these discrepancies is an opportunity for growth.

Dr. Williams started with a review of WV Policy 1224.1 – which is the accounting manual for WV public schools. Some of the things she mentioned which that policy requires included:

• The Board of Education has the responsibility to require that all records be maintained of all receipts and disbursements for all programs, activities, or other endeavors at the school by any principal, teacher, student, and anyone else connected to the school.
• The school’s Principal is responsible for the financial management of the school and to ensure that this policy is followed completely, including that all financial records are maintained accurately and submitted on time. She emphasized that is not the local Board of Education’s responsibility.
• All money collected from school activities must be submitted daily to the principal or their designee or if collected after business hours, then on the following school day,

All Receipts must be provided and must equal the total amount received and deposited into the bank. There must be detailed records created for all events. While it is recommended that any money placed in the safe be deposited daily, it is required that deposits be made anytime there is $500.00 in the safe. Even if there is not $500 in the safe, what is there must deposited weekly or right before a break or holiday weekend regardless of the amount.

• All purchases require that a purchase order be completed before being made and that sufficient funds are available for the purchase. Also, the bid policy must be followed if required by the amount of the purchase.

Williams described how and when the finance handling issues at PCHS were discovered.

On December 11,2025 they received information that there were financial issues at PCHS. On December 16, Sarah Hamilton and Dr, Rhonda Combs, the Director of Personnel began an informal investigation at the school to check the safe and the handling of funds. On December 17, based on the discrepancies they found, Williams ordered a formal independent audit to be done at PCHS by the Education Consulting Team to cover the period of July, 1, 2024 through December 22, 2025. That audit found a number of serious financial discrepancies and failures to follow policy 1224.1.

Just a few of the discrepancies discovered included:

• They found that some receipts were originally marked with the amounts of cash and checks received, but then the cash amounts were crossed out and only the checks were eventually deposited. One example of this involved the WV Envirothon FFA fundraiser on April 25, 2025, where the $192.65 cash received was written on the form but was later crossed out and only the checks were deposited. There were other examples of this as well.
• Deposits were not made within the policy timeframe. One glaring example was the cash for gate boxes was withdrawn from the bank on August 22, 2024 but not put back for almost a year.
• On June 18, 2025, there were two donations made for the Carpentry program totaling $20,250, but there was no copy of those two checks to be found. There were multiple findings of this violation.
• Purchases in excess of $5000 were not bid out as required and others not done timely. They checked 627 Purchase orders made from July 1, 2024 through December 22, 2025 and found 294 of them were backdated to a day that predated the invoice date and were not put in the system until after the order date and in some cases not until after the goods were received, both of which are violations.

Dr. Williams said as a result of this audit, she is arranging for independent audits to be made at the other 4 schools as well. She said there are several unresolved issues that will require further review, including reported collections of cash and checks in which only the checks were ever deposited.

She added that all staff will receive training through Vector or another approved platform in the near future; principals will be required to spread out fundraisers over time so that they will not overwhelm the records keeping; and there will also be a second independent audit of all schools conducted at the end of the school year to assess the improvements in compliance with policy.

She ended by saying this debrief about the audit is intended for transparency, not to beat any specific person down.