Board Treasurer Alleges Misuse of Credit Cards, State Auditor Pledges Action
Face the State Staff Report
When Todd Jirsa, Vice President of the Estes Park School Board, was elected treasurer of a public cooperative that provides educational services to smaller school districts, he seemed like the perfect guy for the job. Coming from a district that had just finished implementing a series of comprehensive financial reforms, he was eager to bring accountability to 14 other districts in north central Colorado.
“Coming from Estes Park, I was particularly sensitive to certain practices that years earlier had resulted in the discipline of (district leaders)," said Jirsa. "To prevent any such future episodes, we had implemented strict financial controls. (These) had become such a built-in part of how we did things that I naturally brought that same mindset with me to the treasurer job.”
A year and a half into the job, however, Jirsa says he and his school district have been sent a clear message from the cooperative: "Shut up or get out." His push for reform within the Centennial Board of Cooperative Educational Services is not welcome.
Colorado has 20 regional boards like Centennial Cooperative. They supply specialized educational services to school districts that can't afford to provide them alone. Services include special education, migrant education, and curriculum or staff development, in order to meet regulatory requirements imposed on districts by state or federal legislation. School districts fund the boards primarily through service fees, but the boards also receive grants and participate in federal programs.
Diving into his new responsibilities, Jirsa launched an informal audit of charge card use by CBOCES employees. He found the results alarming. According to him, people were spending tens of thousands of dollars in questionable and undocumented meals and other purchases -- many in apparent violation of federal tax law. He says he also found attempts to avoid sales taxes for personal purchases by using the cooperative’s tax exempt status. In response, Jirsa called for a special meeting of the CBOCES’ board to correct the problems.
Over the next 12 months, Jirsa twice convinced the board to perform an independent forensic financial audit to identify and fix the problems, some of which had also been uncovered by an official audit of board finances. In both cases, backroom politicking by some board members canceled those audits before they could begin.
Rather than solve their financial irregularities, the BOCES’ board instead demanded Jirsa’s resignation. When he refused, the board took action to fire Jirsa, and even moved to kick Estes Park schools out of the cooperative. Late last month, the board gave itself the power to fire Jirsa and expel Estes Park, and the Board now appears poised to carry through on its threats. Jirsa recognizes the potential corruption; “This is the decision to punish my entire district because I did my job as required by state law.”
Over the last two months, the board's practices have come to the attention of the Office of the State Auditor, as well as the State Board of Education. Each has indicated that it might launch an audit.