BY CHRISTOPHER S. PINEO
NAVAJO TIMES
WINDOW ROCK — Ch’ooshgai Community School is looking into abuse of credit cards but a former employee says such costs didn’t exist while voter-ousted members of the school board actually had unnecessary travel and meeting expenses.
School officials had not returned calls at press time, but a leaked letter from Principal Leon Oosahwe addressed the credit card issue and gave his stance on speaking to the press.
He said credit cards should be turned over to his office immediately to be directly managed by his office from now on.
“This is a directive to business office personnel listed above who are in possession of school credit cards,” the letter said.
The letter listed Larry Tsosie, gener- al ledger; Tara Tsosie, payroll; Regina Shorty, accounts payable; and Jim Smith, procurement.
His letter also addressed speaking to the press.
“Additionally, my faith and trust in your ability to handle school business confidentially is in question,” the letter said. “I will require your loyalty to this organization and not the previous finance leader. If you have issues with this directive, I have two week notice with intent to resign in my possession for your signature.”
School staff and faculty have orders not to speak to the press, but former employees and parents have been in touch with the Navajo Times.
A former employee said no evidence of credit card misuse turned up when the employee worked at the school.
The former employee told the Navajo Times that they found evidence of overspending by the prior school board. As a result of seeing over spending in the budget on travel, the former employee said they began to deny expense requests for travel by board members.
Board members pushed back, according to the former employee.
“They wanted to keep traveling,” the former employee said.
The former employee and a 2015 audit by LeCompte, P.C. of Rio Rancho, New Mexico, confirmed that board members also overspent on stipends paid to them at special meetings under the Uniform Stipend Policy for Navajo Local Community School Boards from the Department of Diné Education.
The former employee saw the expense going over the allowed amount at the time and began to refuse payment to board members for the meetings.
“I told them I’m not going to pay them,” the former employee said.
Parents had come to suspect school board overspending, which they brought to the attention of the Navajo Times and to a public 2016 meeting on the issues facing the school.
At an October meeting the parents told representatives from Naschitti, Tohatchi, Coyote Canyon, Twin Lakes, and Mexican Springs that they had requested the 2015 audit from the school.
“It is our right as parents to have this public documentation,” Kevin Dauphinais, a parent of two students, said at the meeting.
Parents at the meeting also said the school board had exceeded the number of “special meetings” allowed, and the audit received by the Navajo Times recently confirmed just that. According to the audit, the school had $4,500 budgeted for six special meetings in addition to $15,000 budgeted for 12 regular meetings. The cost exceeded the total $19,500 budgeted by $6,084.
“The School had a total of 11 regular board meetings and 16 special board meetings during the fiscal year 2015,” the audit said. “The total stipend paid to the board members was $25,584 in which $20,685 was paid from the Administrative Grant fund and $4,899 was paid from the general fund.”