Shelley School District hopes to prevent future theft and embezzlement

SHELLEY — After two former Shelley School District employees were investigated for theft and embezzlement of school and district funds, ending with both pleading guilty — one sentenced and the other awaiting sentencing, the school district has made changes to help prevent theft from happening again.

Former Shelley High School principal Eric T. Lords, 49, pleaded guilty to felony grand theft Tuesday in Bingham County court. Lords is accused of using around $3,700 of school funds on personal purchases. In January, former Shelley School District financial secretary Cristy Jo Burton, 52, was sentenced to 60 days in jail and ordered to pay nearly $11,000 in restitution for two counts of felony grand theft. Burton embezzled more than $10,000 from the school district while sure worked for the district.

“It really put mud on our face, I feel like,” Shelley Superintendent Chad Williams said. “The public may have questioned whether or not they felt like they trusted us. And the acts of a couple dishonest individuals impacted that.”

Williams said the school district has taken measures to prevent theft and embezzlement in the school district.

“When you’re dealing with finances, you always have checks and balances. But really, there also always does come a point where you need to have people be honest. I don’t think there’s any way to work completely around that. But, for sure, we have upped our game on checks and balances,” Lords said.

He said one of the biggest changes they made was to their financial software. Now, all the software runs through the school district office Previously, schools in the district kept track of their own finances and submitted reports to the district.

“So when a transaction takes place at Shelley High School or at Hobbs Middle School or any of the other schools, that software is the same as the software that the district office is using. That way the district office and preserve checks and balances for those for each school building,” Williams explained.

The district has also ramped up the audits done of each school throughout the year.

“We’re required to have an audit each year. And we have those auditors meeting with our financial secretaries and our principals on a yearly basis to make sure that they are just better trained,” Williams said.

Among some of the smaller, but still important changes, the school district has gotten rid of all signature stamps. This means the person signing off on a financial transaction has to physically sign their signature.

On top of those changes he mentioned, Williams explained that the district has taken various other steps and implemented other policies to help ensure the safety of the school district funds.

“Here we are two to three years later. Finally, the truth is coming out publicly, and hopefully, the public feel like they can trust that we’re handling their funds appropriately,” Williams said.

Bryan Jolley was the Shelley School District superintendent when the investigations into Lords and Burton began. Williams took over after Jolley retired at the end of June in 2019.