A Virginia program that helps teenage dropouts return to school is at risk of losing its federal funding, according to a state audit. The three-year review of the Virginia National Guard Commonwealth ChalleNGe found about $120,000 in questionable transactions involving state, federal and private funds, according to an audit of the state’s Department of Military Affairs.
The money apparently was taken by a program employee who had access to a petty cash account and other funds and could write checks and make deposits without effective supervision, the audit showed.
Most of the funding for the program, housed at Camp Pendleton in Virginia Beach, comes from the federal government. The missing $120,000, along with questions about the eligibility of some of the students enrolled in the program, puts that $2.5 million in funding at risk, the audit said.
The employee thought responsible for the missing money was removed from the work site and the department reorganized controls over the accounts, according to a spokesman for the state’s Department of Military Affairs.
The ChalleNGe Program admits teenage dropouts and puts them through a 22-week program of academics, physical fitness and life skills followed by a one-year mentorship program. More than 3,000 cadets have completed the program since the academy opened its doors in 1994.
Auditors checked the status of 40 students enrolled in the program and discovered that 34 of them were not even eligible to be in it because they were not dropouts. The discrepancy was caused because the program admits students who are at risk of dropping out but still in school at the time of their enrollment in the program, the audit showed.
Retired Marine Col. Thomas Early, director of the program, said the process would be changed so that it enrolls only students who can prove they’re no longer attending school.
“This is the first audit we’ve had in 11 years,” Early said, “so I think they learned something and we learned something and they should probably do it more often.”
