The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1918-10-25

at the polls, and they expect to get
them by stealth.
FAILURES OF SCHOOL BOARD
INVITE EMBEZZLEMENT
II is easy to criticise when things
have gone wrong. It is not easy to
analyze the intricate problems and
make it clear lust how things go
wrong and escape observation. This
is a proper time to study some of
these troublesome things and to COM
prehend matters that have escaped
attention and baffied our understand
ing.
The Blackfoot school board has
neglected a number of things, and
we believe SOME Of these things have
been neglected because the members
Of tn hoard did not comprehend the
necessity for them. We believe the
average. citizen knew and under
stood less about 1t than the trustees.
Inst at this time it is easy to see why
slight neglect on the part of the,
board opened up the way for en-
bezzling large sums of money with
out the board or the bank having
any knowledge of the crime at the
time II the embezzler won in his
speculation he put it back, but II he
lost the people had to bear the loss.
One thing the trustees neglected
To do was to see that the bank in
which the funds were kept, paid in
terest on the daily balances lying in
the hank. The law makes it their
duty to keep the money where they
can secure the highest rate of inter-
est ON daily balances, and the law
makes it the duty of the treasurer
to make a warrant-call as often as
he accumulates $1,000. ut used to be
$4,000
By neglecting to give any atten-
finn TO these matters it left the treas
urer free to mis-inform the board as
to how much there was on hand or
not to inform them at all. In either
case the board for the past many
months did not know the facts at all,
and there was nothing to bring 1t to
the attention of the bank that any
certain portion of the money on hand
belonged to the school and that it
was costing them any certain amount
for the use of it. Evidently the bank
did not pay enough attention to it
to discover that there was $4,000
or $4,000 or any other sum in that
fund by rights, but that in fact it was
out on speculation or in private loans
being engineered by the cashier of
the hank who was also the treasurer
for the school.
The nublic had no chance to know
these things. because no publication
was ever made to show the public the
detailed fist of receipts and disburse
ments for the year. If this had been
done. some citizens would have dis
covered that more than $1,000 was,
or should have been on hand at GER
tain times and that no warrant call
was made or no warrants redeemed
with it and no interest stopped on
the warrants. Some citizens would
have scanned the list of receipts and
observed that no interest was being
collected from daily balances. The
kew to the whole loss may be said
to be the lack of publication of de-
tailed financial statements and lack
of interest on the part of the public
who had no means, of getting infor-
nation except by asking to see the
hooks and few people have the timer
or the ability to figure out very
much If they had the books. Up to
few weeks ago the treasurer seems
to have been under no bond to secure
the school funds. altho he had pos
session of as much as $26,211 at
time. and unknown to the board and
the public, was specializing with or
loaning it. And that is not all, he
had a reputation for making loans
to men whose rating was SO weak
that they could not borrow of the
banks at all.
The law REQUIRES the treasurer to
deposit the school money in a special
deposit, not on his private account.
He cannot carry the funds around
in his rockets nor put them in a
safety deposit vault nor deposit
them in a bank in his own name.
Up to last February he had never
with the law in this respect
but Spilled the money around in pri-
vate loans and private investments
and had as high as $4,000 of school
warrants drawing interest when they
should have been paid off with the
money he had received.
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