FAKE NAMES ON ROLLS AT MEADOW HEIGHTS

PATTON -- Fictitious names were added to the student rolls at Meadow Heights School District, likely generating more state money than the district was entitled to.

The names of 17 fictitious students appear on the rolls for 1990-91, and 17 others appear on the rolls for 1991-92, a state school official found.

Those names could have brought in as much as $34,000 extra a year. A student at Meadow Heights generates between $1,500 and $2,000 a school year in state aid.

On Tuesday, the official, Geri Ogle, director of school finance for the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, verified the names were fictitious.

Ogle is in the process of recalculating the state funds the school district should have received for both years. If Meadow Heights was overpaid, the school district must repay the money.

Roy Allen, Meadow Heights Board of Education president, and Melanie Keeney, attorney for the school district, worked with Ogle to determine which names are fictitious.

Allen said the investigation hasn't proven who is responsible for adding the fictitious names to the records.

"We have found no information of personal gain by anyone," Allen said. "It appears to have been done in the interest of the school district."

Keeney said the school will make information about the fictitious names available to prosecutors.

"We will let them make the determination about any action to take," she said. "We are not qualified to determine if there has been any criminal wrongdoing."

Allen learned about the possibility of fictitious names July 4.

Superintendent Tom Waller resigned July 11 after problems with student attendance figures were discovered. Waller has said he might have inadvertently inflated the figures but his resignation was prompted more by years of battle with board member Millie Yates and her supporters than any discrepancy with attendance figures.

Repeated efforts Tuesday to reach Waller for comment about the names were unsuccessful.

On Tuesday Ogle, Allen, Keeney and acting superintendent Cheri Fuemmeler checked a list of suspect names against student permanent files.

Attendance figures are used to calculate a school district's state funding. The amount of state funds are based on the number of hours students attend school per year.

"We are trying to trace the numbers reported back to the start," Ogle said.

The process is difficult because the fictitious students were enrolled for varying amounts of time.

Ogle said a problem like this wouldn't necessarily be uncovered during the annual audit all public school districts must conduct. "Auditors do samples," Ogle explained. "Auditors don't routinely look at every student's record."

On Tuesday, Yates wanted to sit in while Ogle and the others compared lists, but Allen wouldn't let her. The board voted last month to let Allen and Keeney look into the allegations. Allen said a report on the findings will be given to the board at its Aug. 21 meeting.

Yates hopes that the investigation won't stop with the fictitious names.

"Maybe students dropped from school in January but were counted until May," she said. "Maybe kids never came back to school in the fall but were counted until November. If someone has made up students, we just don't know what else might have been done."