re: EBR School Official Falls for Nigerian Phishing Scam to the Tune of $46,500

And the School Board replies... My email and then the response-

Mrs. Freiberg,

I am a constituent / taxpayer who lives in District 7 and my child attends EBR Parish schools. I am not a busy body or general complainer regarding government activity.

That being said, I am writing today in regards to the recent news stories about the “phishing” incident at the EBR Parish School Board.

I will cut to the chase and keep this brief.

I am less concerned that the Chief Business Operations Officer can be fooled by a ludicrous phishing email than the fact that she blatantly disregarded financial controls to send a significant amount of money to an individual in New York based solely on what she thought was an email from the Superintendent. What kind of operation is being run that someone would think that is a normal occurrence? What type of operation allows an employee to nonchalantly disregard a spending control for tens of thousands of dollars and not expect that employee to be fired on the spot? What type of operation wastes $40,000+ of taxpayer dollars and then says it is OK because insurance covered most of the loss? Lastly, let’s not forget that they quickly approved the expenditure of ANOTHER $10,000 just to audit the initial screw up.

I don’t get worked up very often but this incident has me angry and wondering just what is going on with my property tax dollars. The fact that this occurred in May and is just now coming to light is another entirely different issue. I have the feeling that there was a hope that it would go unnoticed right up until the media found out about it.

I am watching and so are others. I would appreciate it if you would make sure this issue is addressed properly and not allowed to pass with no repercussions.

Thank you in advance for your attention to this matter.

And the response...

This was indeed a very unfortunate incident. There was no attempt to cover up any of this matter. What we did want to do was to fully investigate the it before making any judgements about this incident.

As a School Board, we were extremely concerned and expressed that concern clearly to our Superintendent. There was the involvement of all law officials in Louisiana and New York, including the FBI. Unfortunately, the flood issues set the audit back several weeks. Recommendations from the auditors have helped us to create new policies and procedures so that this should never happen in the future.

In the end, Supt Drake is in charge of all personnel in the district; the only person the Board hires or fires is the Superintendent. He will make the decisions on any personnel changes. Please know that our CFO is a person who has done a great job for many years in our system; however, she certainly made a critical mistake in this case.

I am happy to discuss this in more detail if you wish.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts,
Barbara