OFFERING AN EXPLANATION — Hancock County Board of Education President Chris Gillette, left, and Superintendent Dan Enich offered more details on the school district’s financial picture during Monday’s school board meeting. -- Craig Howell

NEW CUMBERLAND — Discussions on the financial picture of Hancock County Schools continued during Monday’s county board of education meeting, with officials hearing from multiple residents and offering a few details on the path ahead of them.

Claiming he was the one who took financial worries to the West Virginia Department of Education, Superintendent Dan Enich expressed appreciation for the concern of residents since school officials announced the issues which led to the termination of the former finance director and discussions on potential staffing cuts and school consolidations.

“I want to give you the information more than you know,” Enich said Monday, adding the district needs to have a complete financial picture before being able to go into full detail.

Those details, he said, should be completed by early January through the efforts of former Tyler County Schools financial officer Jeff Davis and his firm Educational Consultant LLC, with which Hancock Schools contracted in October. Davis is in the process of correcting issues with the 2024-2025 and 2025-2026 school year budgets, which officials hope will both give a clearer picture of where Hancock County Schools stands and assist in projecting the next couple of years.

Part of that includes inputting financial data into the West Virginia Educational Information System, which Enich said had not been done previously.

“It has not been used at its full capacity; probably at a minimal capacity,” Enich said, of the state-operated system which has offered a variety of tools and information to school districts for more than a decade.

Among the details Enich did share was allocations of more than $2 million he said were included in the district’s budget, but never properly drawn down from state or federal sources, along with monthly financial reports not being filed with the state, and approximately $800,000 in expenses not recorded properly.

In addition, he said it was discovered during the summer that funds which were supposed to be used to cover the local share of West Virginia Public Employees Insurance Agency plans almost weren’t paid.

Chris Gillette, president of the school board, admitted the board has a share in the culpability over the situation, noting they were relying on the information presented to them.

“When you’re told you have money in there and it doesn’t exist,” Gillette said, explaining, at the end of June, board members were told the district had a $4 million surplus. “If we have to take the blame for it, fine.”

Gillette also noted the school district has, to date, found no evidence of embezzlement in relation to the financial issues.

Enich indicated the issues can, ultimately, be traced back for several years, noting there were no reductions in force for the district for approximately 10 years, saying efforts in the last two years probably weren’t as “aggressive” as they needed to be. He also pointed to large capital improvement projects, including the construction of new athletic fields, which began during previous administrations, along with an ongoing drop in enrollment.

“I’m happy it’s being brought to the forefront,” Enich said. “I’m not happy about the situation we’re in.”