After a former Pembina Hills school division superintendent was accused of abusing his expense account, the division quickly updated its expense account policy. Former Supt. Richard Harvey left the division Oct. 25, and Barrhead RCMP began a fraud investigation into his activities soon after — ultimately resulting in charges of fraud and breach of trust being laid against him earlier this month. The allegations have not been proven in court.
It did not take long after Harvey’s departure, however, for the board to approve changes to the staff expense policy — a new policy was approved at the Oct. 27, 2010 meeting.
Sharon Volorney, who was then vice chair and has since taken over as board chair, said she believes the changes have helped to make it more difficult for expense accounts to be abused.
The division’s secretary-treasurer, Tracy Meunier said like all policies, the expense policy is updated as needed.
The specific changes that were made to the expense policy, which is section 30-8 in the Administrative Procedures Manual, can be seen in the Oct. 27 agenda package.
A major change is that while the prior policy allowed the secretary-treasurer to establish guidelines and procedures to reimburse expenses, those guidelines are now formalized within the policy itself.
Under the reimbursement section, two items were added. The first requires submitted expense receipts to include “details of the transaction as well as details of the meeting/event and participants,” and the second states that if the receipt is for property or equipment, the receipt “must detail the item and where it is located.”
Many other sections were also updated. Section 1.5 now specifies that expenses claimed must be for “a business expense” incurred, as opposed to “an expense” as it previously read.
More significantly given the accusation against Harvey, Section 1.8 now dictates that, “The Superintendent will forward his/her expense claim to the Board chair for approval, with a copy to the Secretary Treasurer.”
Expenses for events requiring an overnight stay are now to be paid for with a PHRD purchase or corporate Visa, as opposed to purchase orders sent to the hotel/motel. The policy was updated again in April 2011, to specify that the division cannot make, nor can individuals be reimbursed for, political donations as the division is considered a “prohibited corporation” under the Election Finances and Contributions Disclosure Act.
