Back in October we learned that for many years, the Loudon County Board Of Education had been distributing large sums of money, some times called the "bag of money" to the individual schools to be used for various expenditures to be determined by the principals. Problem is this practice is illegal.

The state comptroller's office has just released the county audit for 2007-2008. Again this year the county was written up for this practice. The audit clearly states that distributing the money to the schools is a violation of law. But there might be a bright spot. The new director of schools, Wayne Honeycutt, responded the the audit finding by stating that the BOE will be asking the commission for the means to correct the problem. This is a change from years past when former director of schools, Edward Headlee, refused to correct the problem.

This years distribution to each school was as follows.

Eaton Elementary $81,459
Greenback $81,495
Loudon Elementary $60,111
North Middle School $92,946
Steekee Elementary $36,117 
Ft. Loudon Middle School $43,804
Highland Park Elementary $47,273
Loudon High School $83,346
Philadelphia $66,453

Hopefully, with a new director and new board members this illegal activity will be dealt with in the upcoming budget process.