From the Bel Air Police Department:
The Bel Air Police Criminal Investigation Division has completed an investigation related to theft of funds from Homestead – Wakefield Elementary School. The investigation began in early May, 2015 and concluded with the indictment and arrest of Sandra Lee Connor of Aberdeen, Maryland on August 27, 2015. Ms. Connor was an employee of the school system, working at Homestead-Wakefield before retiring in May 2015.
Ms. Connor was held on $25,000 bond and is charged with;
1. Theft: $500 plus value CR.7.104
2. Theft Scheme: $500 plus value CR.7.104
3. Theft: $100,000 plus CR.7.104
4. Theft Scheme: $100,000 plus CR.7.104
If you have information regarding this incident please contact the Bel Air Police Criminal Investigation Division, Detective Sergeant Jim Lockard jlockard@belairmd.org or by calling 410-638-4500.
How in the hell did she manage to steal over 100,000 in funds from the school? Sounds like the checks and balances are not in place in the school system. Oh and she is beat looking almost looks homeless, no way in hell I would let her handle finances in a school setting or my personal finances. Boggles my mind
Lance, obviously you do not understand that a mug shot is not a portrait session. She looks like she’s aged 30 years since this all came out. I would think that the guilt of public exposure for stealing from 4 to 10 year old children would be taking its toll. My guess is that she got a 4am knock at the door to come visit the photo booth. You are correct about the checks & balances though. For large sums of money there should be much more oversight. Public oversight for public funds. Each individual school should have open books that any taxpayer could review on-line. Of course, if you ask for something like this, you most likely get one of two standard answers; 1.) We’ve got this, we’re are the experts – not you. 2.) Privacy and confidentiality prevents us from letting you know how public funds are spent. The principal of this school may have been responsible for direct oversight but each one of us that puts up with these type of answers (from any level) and apathetically retreats into blissful ignorance is to blame. This remorseless theft occurred through AT LEAST 3 superintendent’s watch. Each of those making nearly a quarter million dollars a year. Several senior assistant staff all making well over what Ms. Connor is accused to have stolen here were also all along for the ride yet the public chooses to blame those who volunteer (NOT PAID) to be school board members while a principal is scapegoated. I’ve seen the commitment of employees of all levels that make our system good. I believe that TRUE parent & community involvement could make it great. If you are happy to be told “we’ve got it”, then this is YOUR fault. Don’t kid yourself that this has only happened / is only happening at one school.
And now we know what happened to Hunsinger
If only teachers got raises, I’m sure this wouldn’t have happened. Won’t anyone think of the children?
This lady was not a teacher so please don’t blame it on teachers. I’m thinking a secretary probably in charge of paying bills. I don’t think anyone looks good in a mug shot.
Teachers do not have access to that amount of money ever. Most of them don’t even handle any money at all, other than to send it to the office in an envelope!
…and have two witnesses sign off that it was deposited! (No lie).
She was the lead secretary at HWES.
correction…………..lead THIEF
Can someone please explain to me how this much money could be taken in a span of 7 years and the HCPS auditors have missed it? Someone, other than Mr. Hunsinger, needs to be held accountable! Where are the checks and balances that any business uses in order to prevent this kind of thing from happening. And, am I understanding correctly, that none of this was discovered until after this woman retired in May?
It just isn’t right that Mr. Hunsinger was the fall guy for the crimes Sandra Connor committed. As I see it, the Board of Education’s auditors really dropped the ball! If she started stealing from HWES in 2008, that means the annual audits were blown for at least 6 or 7 years!! Seems to me that the auditors weren’t doing their job!! Mr. H was busy putting the kids at his school first. He trusted his employees and always thought of us like a family. How Sandi could do this to Mr. H and her HWES family is beyond my comprehension. I hope Dale has some peace now that the truth has been revealed. God bless you, Dale and your family.
Pat C
The principal couldn’t figure out $100,000+ was missing in his school? Who do you think is responsible for managing the school funds? I bet if you asked any principal who is responsible for managing schools funds 100% would say they are responsible.
According to reports in the newspaper, the money didn’t go missing all at once! That is why I am questioning why the official auditors didn’t pick up on this over seven years. Of course, anyone would have picked up $100,00+ if it was done all at once, but it seems like she was very clever! And I do understand “the buck stops here” and that is what happened to Dale Hunsinger, but he was not the criminal! Apparently you do not know Dale Hunsinger personally like I do, so you just don’t understand that a good man was hurt by the actions of Sandra Connor and that just isn’t fair.
Hunsinger got played like a two bit fiddle and rightfully lost his job. Gee if you can’t be trusted with the finances you certainly can’t be trusted with the children.
Mr. Hunsinger has been entrusted with thousands of children over his career with HCPS and his reputation for putting kids first has not be tarnished!! He has hundreds of people who have worked for him over his 50 years of service to HCPS and they will stand with me in saying that Dale Hunsinger is a man of worthy of our support and allegiance. If Sandi had needed money for necessities, Dale would have given her money out of his own pocket….that’s just the kind of guy he is, so stop with the negative remarks about a man you don’t really know!!! Direct your negativity toward the source of the problem, his former secretary!
Doesn’t matter, your boy got retired. Move on with your life or keep jaggin’ off to it. Freak.
This woman should rot in jail. How could she do this to such a great HWES family. Yes the office staff and teachers are like family to each other. Dale still has m
How far up the ladder do you go when placing blame? Why stop at Mr. Hunsinger? Using the same logic, the Superintendant should know what the principals of the schools are doing. Ultimately, the Superintendant should be fired as well.
The Directir of Elementary Education is responsible for checking on the principals and suggest moving principals around. The many transfers that occurred all at once looks like someone figured out a little late that it’s not good control practice to leave admins in one place for that long.
Then the Director of Elem.Ed., Angela Morton, should be doing a better job of monitoring principals. I know of a few current ones who need some serious monitoring!!!
The entire HCPS system is chock full of thieves. Some get more than others. If the county really wants to find out how corrupt the system is, set up a reward system for turning in your fellow employee. The current system is based on I can steal more than you and its the teachers and students who pay the ultimate price.
And this amount was just for the past 7 years. She worked at HWES for almost 18 years. I wonder how much more was stolen that cannot be proved. Oh, and how about amounts of cash that was handed to her to deposit from the PTA? HCPS needs to step it up with their auditing department and in creating a better system for the handling of money. Didn’t similar things happen at Bakerfield ES and at Patterson Mill HS? I guess the amount of money wasn’t as substantial but you would have thought that HCPS would have learned something from those instances.
And that’s just 1 person. Think of all the other years of school employees stealing (whatever).
No, no incident like this ever occurred at BFES. Your comment probably stems from a rumor, but the investigation proved that no money was ever taken.
Then why was a principal “demoted” to a classroom teaching position?
It was fund raiser money, not money that went through HCPS which is why an audit didn’t catch it. She was apparently responsible for collecting all of the fund raising money at the school. The longer she got away with it, the larger the sums were that she skimmed which is how she eventually was caught.
Actually it was much more than PTA fund raising money. Do you really think that the PTA raised over a quarter of a million dollars in 7 years…. PLEASE, get real! It involved other things from the school account that had been supposedly checked annually by HCPS auditors. There is so much more to this story than the general public will know. HCPS is partially to blame!!
Actually, the HWES operating budget does spend about a quarter million every 2 years. Over 7 years, the PTA raises closer to a million dollars than a quarter mil.
The average missing was less than $18,000 a year.
And…. how in the world could a PTA treasurer/ board not have missed that amount of money??? Unbelievable in itself! “PTA $$”, you are acting like “the average missing was less than $18,000 a year” was not enough to be concerned about! Well, in my opinion that’s a substantial amount of money lost. And a lot of kids and families went to a lot of time and trouble fund raising to get that much money. It might only be a small part of your “quarter million $ budget over two years”, but $18,000 is about what an average HCPS teacher (10month paycheck) grosses in 14 weeks of teaching. To me, that’s a pretty substantial amount of money missing, and should not have been overlooked by HWES PTA Board (especially the treasurer). So, in my opinion partial blame should be laid on the poor handling of fund raising practices by the HWES PTA!! If in fact the theft of all (or even part of) the money is PTA related, why is Mr. Hunsinger the only one being blamed for not knowing????
No cash was ever given to the school from the PTA. There is a paper trail for everything. Your opinion is based upon speculation and hearsay details or- maybe YOU know much more and are simply trying to bait & deflect. The paper trail created by the PTA is one of the things that make it possible to prosecute her. If you are saying that there should be much more transparency from HCPS then I totally agree. As an example, all purchases for technology have to be made through HCPS purchasing or they will not be serviced by OTIS. Parents have asked for a detailed listing of purchases but without writing a public records request for each item good luck on seeing an actual receipt from a vendor. The “I’m insulted that you would ask for such a thing” attitude has to go.
Even if it was fund raising money through the PTA shouldn’t someone along the way have missed the $18,000 a year??? If there was such a good paper trail… then why did it take so long to find out there were missing funds? $18,000 isn’t exactly chump change! Was a PTA board member the first one to find the discrepancies or was it a HCPS employee. It didn’t happen until after Sandi Connor retired. WHY?
Of course, HCPS and the Superintendent are going to put a different spin on it because they don’t want any of the blame directed to them. Some of these thefts involved checks from the school account. I am pretty sure the HCPS auditors are supposed to look at the checks issued to the school itself, not the PTA checks. HCPS fails the children/families and staff members once again!!
What a great role model for the children. I never liked those fund raisers anyway, because I felt that HCPS made the kids feel like they had to sell stuff to people feeling obligated to buy it. I also didnt want my children going door to door because it wasn’t safe. Then I hear about this wretch of a woman stealing from the children. Disgusting and I hope she goes to jail for a very long time.
Local government dysfunction at its greatest, stole $100,000 dollars and it took YEARS to figure it out. LOL
I love hearing about all the criminals in HCPS!
This thief secretary kinda looks like Vi Ripken. Maybe she knows who stole Vi Ripken a few years back
First of all, THE ONLY ONE RESPONSIBLE IS SANDI!!!!!! She is a calculated thief and con artist. Dale Hunsinger and HCPS are the VICTIMS!!!!!! She manipulated and falsified documents. To say that Dale is at fault is just wrong. He didn’t just “miss” something. He didn’t just “overlook” things. He was lied to and manipulated. She is right up there with the best of the con-artists! There are probably other aspects of her life that she has also lied and falsified. It took a lot of talent and skill to be able to hide it for so long and to be able to get the amount that she did. The total that she is being charged with is only the amount that can be proven. There is most likely lots of cash that cannot be accounted for that has also disappeared. She has also worked for the system a lot longer than the 7 years that HCPS has records for. Everyone needs to remember that this was a CALCULATED CRIMINAL ACT that she and she alone is guilty of.
In the beginning, he would have had to be removed because at that point he would have been a part of the investigation. It’s the way that it was handled that made it wrong.
This employee reported directly to Hunsinger. He is responsible for tracking the accounts budgeted to HWES. This school was on the radar for other discrepancies. Unfortunately, the warnings were not heeded and theft continued.
Please list “other dicrepencies” or realize that your comment says a lot about you.
The principal of the building is responsible as I am of my employees. If the controls over accounts and cash handling are not followed, it is my responsibility to make sure corrective action is taken. If someone has stolen over $100,000 over 7 years and I was not aware, it is because either I chose not to be or did not care to handle it or worse. From what I have read about DH, I am sure it is one of the first two.
Base line, accountability matters, this is taxpayer funds and misappropriation of funds needs to addressed aggressively. This should send a signal to all in HCPS they had better make sure controls are in place. Should have been the same message after the PMHS incident but no one was held accountable there.
Wow. It’s like talking to a politician.
YOU SAID “other discrepancies”. Please list them.
To Hoping for Justice.. you are right on the money….I don’t know DH but I have heard about his good rep….believe me if he knew he would do something about it….You want to know why I say this…Harford County is not the only one that was burned by Sandi. She assesses every situation very carefully to figure out how to get money out of it. Then she strikes without a conscience. It hurts to trust someone and be betrayed by them. Believe me……DH was a victim just like me…..
I guessed this….if you have other information you should contact the BA police dept. They are looking for more evidence.
To Hoping for Justice….we intend on talking to Police or DA.
Thank You…Mr. Hunsinger needs support for his reputation!
I have been involved in finance for many years of my career and I’m appalled by the lack of financial controls in the school system. Proper accounting procedures, especially when dealing with cash collections, would have prevented this sort of thing. If the theft and waste were curbed, we could probably give our teachers a decent raise.
I should have said “Us” instead of “Me”. I didn’t want t to involve others. Also, as far as raises…..what about across the board. From what I understand some employees have not received a raise in years! So glad I didn’t work for Harford County. I relied on private sector for employment and received a raise every single year….not bragging but I don’t agree with the process… And obviously the process of checks and balances process is out of whack! But for us we finally see justice as far as Sandi!
This situation is just sad. This woman stole from a very large elementary school that had hard working parents who raised a lot of money. She obviously took money from my daughter who never had paid yearbook posts appear. No record of them. My grandsons didn’t get their hard cover yearbooks because the order was never found. They were not the only ones. This woman knew how to skim the money in a cunning way. A principal of 2 buildings, the largest elementary school in the county, trusted his lead secretary. Who does this to a wonderful man and beloved principal like Dale Hunsinger and bright faced children? Who sees parents giving countless hours of their time to raise money in hard economic school times and steals from them? She is obviously very sick and needs help. She is harmful to society, has no morals or conscience.
Remember all the “Thibeault” missing money at Patterson mill? An audit found systemwide irregularities and weaknesses in cash handling; and haas and tomback looked the other way.
Think of all the other criminal activity that occurs daily that hasn’t been brought to light.
Makes you wonder.
Think of the millions that Craig shoveled to his developer buddies, all done totally legally.
This is an unfortunate situation. Our principal shared with us the procedures for handling money two or three years ago. That doesn’t solve what happened in years past, but it should have been caught after the Thiebault incident. He should have been fired, too. Each principal is told to open the monthly checking account with the past month’s checks before it is given to the secretary. That way they can monitor the accounts. At least that is what we were told at a faculty meeting. Unfortunately, It sounds like that didn’t happen here.
There are principals who are very involved in such things as making kids and staff their top priority. There are principals who are very involved in the management of the physical building and grounds. There are principals who are very involved in curriculum matters. And there are principals who try to micro-manage everything, including finances. A principal , like Mr., Hunsinger who is in charge of a 2 building school with such a large population cannot have total control over all of these important factors. I have worked with Mr. Hunsinger and I know he does his best to be involved in all aspects of managing a school. However, he has always had a good sense of people and seems to hire caring, honest, hardworking, dependable and knowledgeable staff members. He did not hire Sandi Connor. She was already at HWES when he took over. There are many different principals with many different management styles. After this unfortunate incident of theft from a HCPS school, I think it’s time Mrs, Canavan does some housecleaning of current administrators. I know of one elementary principal who actually brags about not knowing anything about finances and the handling of money. I have personally heard this principal say “I don’t know about ________” (some money matter),” go ask Mrs. ________” (lead secretary). These are not little things about little concerns. She actually made the statement when first coming to her current school that she has turned over all finances to the lead secretary. Lucky, for this particular school community that this lead secretary is well versed in financial matters and is an honest, trustworthy , experienced person. But there is no way this principal could have known that right away. This took place within the last several years, so it was after the supposed (re)training of administrators in the correct handling of money matters. This principal often makes the statement, “What are they going to do fire me?”, after telling staff members of something that she is doing that doesn’t follow HCPS policy. Then she makes an idiotic, silly, immature giggle… like she is proud of herself for having gotten away with this for so long. I think it’s time for Mrs. Canavan to make some drop in, unannounced visitations of her principals and check up on a few things and personally, confidentially speak to each lead secretary as to current procedures.
Please. Her visits are pointless dog and pony shows that yield no results. When she visits a school, she doesn’t even walk around and see what is going on or even say hello to people. She came to our building last year and our principal made a big deal about it and then we never even saw her.
I think it was mentioned that the visits should be unannounced… you know, like the principals do to us at least once or twice a year!! I agree that it’s a dog and pony show if they know someone is coming ahead of time. It’s sickening to watch, seriously!
There have been con-artists that have deceived the government and many large companies. It happens all the time. These people are adept at deceiving people and technology is making it easier to do and easier to hide. The reason why there is a chain of people responsible for balancing accounts is to look for discrepancies. Yes, Mr. Hunsinger may have not seen the discrepancies…because they were masterfully hidden. Then, the auditors (who are trained to look for discrepancies) were given a chance at it…annually I believe…and missed them…again because they were masterfully hidden. That is the whole goal of a con-artist….to hide and deceive. Con-artists deceive until they make a mistake…that’s how they operate.
To hold the ones culpable after being manipulated is crazy. Mr. Hunsinger is an honorable man and those that know him, know it. Good trusting people are always the first to be the ones manipulated because they look for the good in people and trust them. Those of us who are skeptical of everything are not so easy to manipulate. He just happened to be the one in charge and ultimately this crime was under his watch so yes he had to be held responsible but that does not make him guilty of anything other than being trustful of someone he probably thought of as a friend. How many people are deceived by their so called “friends”? Mr H…we love you!!!!
Let’s hope something is learned from this and new procedures are put in place to make it harder for the next con-artist to do, because there will be more.
I love all the comments, this former employee didn’t steal money out of kids lockers for all those years, we are talking $100,000 dollars.
It just shows you how much of a joke HCPS is.
Masterfully hidden? If that’s the case, why are we seeing their Harford Hilton Booking Photo?
The article states that this thief is retired. Please tell me she is not collecting her pension. If so, it needs to go directly to HWES or else taken away completely.
Arm chair quarterbacking at its finest….
Possibly, if HCPS would place 2 administrators in each of its two building elementary schools, this type of dishonesty would have been detected. It is impossible to run all aspects of a two building school. The cheapest of this school system just came back to haunt them. When will they ever learn?
Never. Thousands of employees with a dysfunctional local .gov. We are all just waiting around for the next criminal article involved with the next HCPS employee.
I am guessing that Hollywood Casino got a large chunk of that money.
Ironic, considering that we were told that the casinos would be used to help fund schools.
I was talking with a guy in a bar down at the ocean and he told me photoshopped and printed correct sized faux copies of a bullying teacher’s license plate # and state and distributed them to his personal friends and himself.
He laughed telling me how the state’s will still send the “bill” to the registered licenses plate address regardless if the vehicle in the picture doesn’t match what the license plate is registered to.
LOL I didn’t believe him until I saw his personal car in the parking lot he told me to look at before I left.