The following letter was sent to Harford Schools Superintendent Robert M. Tomback and the members of the Harford County Board of Education by Rob Keesling, President of the Patterson Mill Athletic Boosters. A copy was provided to The Dagger for publication:
Dear Dr. Tomback:
My name is Rob Keesling. I am the President of the Patterson Mill Athletic Boosters (PMAB). I am writing you today, strictly as a concerned parent, to share with you my concerns over recent events at Patterson Mill that potentially have financial impact on the PMAB.
As I am sure you are aware, the Athletic Departments at Harford Counties public High Schools rely on gate receipts from athletic events as a primary source of funding. It is my understanding that all of those funds go into a pool and are then redistributed to the respective schools, based on their percentage of contribution.
As has been reported in the local media, over $10,000 “disappeared” from the safe at Patterson Mill. According to those news accounts, at least some portion of that was money collected from athletic event attendance. Obviously, this could potentially have impact not only on the athletic department budget at Patterson Mill, but that of the other schools in the county. Should that be the case, there could possibly be an increase in funding requests to the PMAB and other such organizations that support the athletic programs at other schools.
As a concerned Patterson Mill parent, I have several questions for you. Where is the money? Why have those responsible for the oversight of it not been held accountable? Were there established protocols that were not followed?
The Harford County Sheriff’s office continues to say “it is an ongoing investigation”. What is Harford County Public Schools’ response?!
Regards,
Rob Keesling
We live in a world of accountability. In order to be good stewards of the money we receive from these events there should have been steps in place to have prevented such a mishap. Leaving that amount of money in a “safe” is…well….unsafe. In the future I would send two people directly to a night deposit drop off box for the schools Athletic Department. Two people to be accountable for the deposit. In addition, I would have several people as “Counters” during the event to come up with the total amount for the deposit. Keep a log sheet of who the counters were and who made the deposit. Keep the safe for petty cash only. This would alleviate keeping everyone out of the newspaper and reduce risk.
You want a response from Tomback? Here it is “Oooooo I love to take a little side step.” Unfortunately you will not change that man and will have to suffer and watch the system to continually go down hill. So sad.
This is another example of a lack of accountability not only at this school but in the school system in general. The school community has not even been given an explanation as to why the principal didn’t report this theft to the school system – other employeees did. This was money generated by parents and people in the community many of whom have lost jobs or seen their income severly decreased. I guess $10,000+ is nothing to the school system but for 2 parents who want to see their kid play a sport and are barely getting by, $10 is a lot which is what it would cost to get into a stadium.
Dr. Tomback should have at least had the DECENCY to address the issue with parents and concerned citizens in the community. Morale has been effected and donations from the community are way down. All the organizations in the school had to defend their practices for handling money but nothing came from the school or the principal. Could have least got a phone call. I am hoping that new Board members will hold the Superintendent and the school system to a higher standard than in recent years. They didn’t hire him and the students and parents need much stronger advocates than they have had in the past.
new school, a slew of high dollar problems. Has the scoreboard been repaired?
The scoreboard has been repaired. The contractor whose vehicle was used to do the damage submitted it to their insurance company. It was refreshing how quickly it was taken care of, unfortunately it was not available for the entire Spring season. Hopefully, this letter will prompt others to voice their concerns/questions about this incident. The large majority of students, staff and parents at Patterson are proud of the school and work very hard to continually improve it, unfortunately we seem snake bite by a few bad apples. My hat is off to my friend Rob, for those who do not know this letter is the tip of the iceberg of what he has and continues to do for PMHS!
Whomever was responsible for the safe should be responsible for replacing the $10,000.
Those of us with an interest in PMHS and for school based physical educaton, athletics and recreation in general have to again raise the flag on this issue via the letter from Mr. Keisling. He raises it as he and others point out again because the processes in place to mitigate or stop these “loss” events from happening are not working. The SIX that I would think are operable (and there may be more) are: 1) HCPS cash handling procedures, 2) sheriffs investigation, 3) HCPS incident reporting to school security, 4) adminstrative oversight by the Supt. of the principals, 5) HCPS and school acounting procedures, and 6) oversight of the funds by the principal. They have not worked and/or are not working. And worst of all no communication except for the HCPS and sheriffs monthly repetive, “ongoing investigation”. the sheriff and the school system must be short of detectives.
To top it off, as Mr. Keisling points out, this lack of responsiveness has consequesnces for upcoming budget needs (FY 2011/12 funds). What do the principal – who has been silient on this, the PMHS athletic director and the HCPS school district athletic director have to say about this funding distribution issue and the upcoming shortfall at PMHS?
Mr. Keisling and others want to know. People have waited long enough. The new school year is approaching. PMHS administrators want the booster clubs, yes plural because several PMHS extra-cirricular activities have been affected by the loss of reportedly $10-20,000, to buy uniforms and the like. People do not want to contribute, nor do hard won loyal sponsors when the money goes to waste and unaccounted for. The PMHS athletic boosters alone have been asked by the school athletic director to commit to funding $10,000/yr for uniforms because the school system can’t take care of its programs. But PMHS won’t tell the booster club what the annual athletic budget is. We all deseerve better than this and so does Mr. Keisling as the booster club president.
Athletic team uniforms do not need to be replaced very often. If they are replaced more often than once every five or six years, that is vanity. For the school to request that booster clubs provide $10,000 PER YEAR for uniforms is ludicrous and would be no different than the school asking the PTSA to buy textbooks or calculators for the school. In these economic times, the athletic director at that school needs to learn to make do with the uniforms they already have. I dare say that the school hasn’t been open long enough for there to be a need to make wholesale replacement of team uniforms.
Although the missing money from PMHS is very concerning, and the total breakdown in the chain of command is even more concerning, that missing money is no excuse for an administration (or an athletic department) to demand that exhorbitant amount of money from the booster club.
First things first, no one has “demanded” any money from the Patterson Mill Athletic Boosters (PMAB). PMAB is an outside organization of parents, coaches and students with the function of providing monetary support to the schools athletic department. The replacement of uniforms came in the form of a request from the Athletic Director. The membership approved it, the request had nothing to do with the missing funds. I think that this is a sufficient explanation to stop uneducated guessing into the nature of the uniform funding. As an officer of PMAB and a parent, I am proud of the purchase and feel vanity never entered into it.
I think we are getting away from the real issue. $10,000.00 is missing from a public school and no one in a position of power seems to care!
I am wondering if any other schools have had this problem and what happened when the protocols weren’t followed for handling of money. This wasn’t a “heist” or anything, this was an ongoing systematic theft. I have spoken to people who say that there was free and easy access to money and no one was monitoring. Did HCPS or Harford County Sheriff’s office talk to the many people who had access to the safe and money? Why is this acceptable to HCPS?
I’d be willing to bet that Dr. Tomback ignores this situation and letter likes he seems to ignore every other one that arises in the school system. Is there any reader out there who has ever written a letter to HCPS and gotten a response? They did a presentation the other night on a “Commuication Audit” but where is the real communication between schools and/or the parents? Stay tuned…
Just to answer one of your questions,Kate. I wrote a letter once to Jackie Haas and had a very log, worthless meeting with Mr. Volrath. Shortly after, my children left the HCPS system.
Lets see…2 HCPS principals get demoted for what, overseeing underperforming schools? Not to dismiss that, but lets be honest, is anyone else going to do better at those particular schools? I for one doubt it. Then here we have this kind of negligence at PMHS. The latest in a series of problems since the school opened its doors. And what are the consequences for the leadership there? Ha!! Nothing, as usual. Safe to say that the good ole boy network is alive and well at HCPS.
Thank you for saying it. We all know that the principal at PMMHS is Tomback’s boy. He made sure his new boy he hired didn’t go to Aberdeen or Joppatowne, he put him at Fallston where he is sure to succeed. Can we please but him out of his contract?
A group of retired school administrators get together for lunch every month. Recently we were discussing the below incident and contemplating why The Aegis hasn’t followed up on this case.
When Dr. A.A. Roberty was School Superintendent, schools were required to deposit all school funds in the bank whenever they amounted too over one thousand dollars. Often, these funds would be deposited via the bank’s night depository on weekends after a sports game or fundraising event.
The school system has an Internal Auditor who should be overseeing all missing funds, although there wasn’t any mention of her in the investigation. And furthermore, the school system doesn’t even know how much money is missing, i.e. between $10,000 and $20,000.00 dollars?
The school system has a Coordinator of Security, a Coordinator of Internal Investigations, an Internal Auditor, and a Harford County Sheriff’s Deputy assigned full time to this particular school as a School Resource Officer. What are they doing?
Patterson Mill Middle/High School is a new school with a multi million dollar surveillance system that is supposed to prevent theft? What happened?
What success has the Fraud Hotline achieved in the past three years of operation?
Fraud Hotline
410-809-6056
Printable Flyer
Concerned citizens and employees can report suspected fraud, waste or abuse of school system resources by calling 410-809-6056. The call automatically goes to a voice mailbox that is monitored daily. The information reported is reviewed by the Office of Internal Audit.
Callers have the option to leave contact information. All information will remain confidential.
Examples of what to report:
Missing cash
Embezzlement
Falsified ed documents
Theft of supplies or equipment
Abuse of work hours
Computer/technology abuse
Vendor fraud
Contractor fraud
Worker’s compensation abuse
Other improper activities
24 hours a day, 7 days a week
Harford County Sheriff’s Office Investigating Theft at Patterson Mill Middle/High School
January 7, 2011
A reported theft of over $10,000 at Patterson Mill Middle/High School in Bel Air prompted an ongoing criminal investigation by the Harford County Sheriff’s Office, according to spokeswoman Monica Worrell.
According to a police report, Harford County Public Schools security chief Bob Benedetto told police on Oct. 20 that a combination of cash and personal checks collected by the school could not be accounted for, and that a felony theft occurred between Dec. 9, 2009 and Sept. 16. Benedetto reported that the missing money was from the cash box money taken at various sports games on various dates, and from a deposit for other school activities.
The police report also indicates that Benedetto contacted the sheriff’s office after first conducting an internal investigation involving multiple persons at the school. He told police that the schools’ vault, where cash boxes are located, had been re-keyed, with the only new key issued to Patterson Mill Principal Wayne Thibeault.
Harford County Public Schools spokesperson Teri Kranefeld told The Dagger that the school system’s investigation is continuing in concert with law enforcement.
I go to patterson mill highschool in maryland and i know that we need longer lunch times because we only have “25 minutes” thats not cutting off the ten to 15 minute waits to get to the lunch and actually ask for what you want. then you have the time to put ur pin in and then even then you have maybe 7 to 5 minutes if its a bad day to eat. on a good day you have 10-15 minutes tops. which i know for a fact the legal amount of time for a highschool student to eat there lunch and have their lunch break is at least 30 minutes and thats accounting after the time u spend in the lines and putting in your pin. So the question is why? why did they cut it in half if the school policy now says and i quote this from a teacher who reads this planner all the time “you can not do any work for that class durring the “huskey period” and the students must use this time wisely”. But half the teachers in this school dont follow this anyways. so why have it. it just kills us and our ability to learn. because we dont have enough time to slowly eat our food and gain all the nutrient in it. instead we have to scarf it down and end with cramps and my friend has even thrown up from being so rushed and being so hungry. i eat breakfest every morning befor school and by lunch time im starving and so are my friends. so how is this a change for the better? it just doesnt help us keep focus because we are to hungry and not energized for the rest of the day. I Jordan Whallen am going to start a pettition about this and i tired of this schools system in cutting our lunch. we need it back to the 50 minutes we had bc we would spend a good 10 minutes in line and still do. but we had 40 minutes by then and we could actually eat.
Give Jordan the whole hour. Lack of food is hurting his ability to write a decent paragraph.
Wow I guess you missed class today?