Athens City Schools Superintendent: PTO financial discrepancies involving Sarah Grace resolved

The financial discrepancies found from Sarah Grace’s time as treasurer of the East Athens Elementary Parent Teacher Organization have been resolved, according to Athens City Schools Superintendent Tom Gibbs.Gibbs and executive members of the East Athens Elementary PTO met Friday afternoon to discuss the financial discrepancies found from Grace’s time as treasurer for the organization.“From the perspective of the Athens City School District, this issue is resolved,” Gibbs said.In a statement to the press, Gibbs said the PTO’s executive officers believe they have access to the records necessary to bring the tax filings current, as well as an understanding of practices that must be adjusted moving forward.As previously reported by The New Political, there were conflicting statements from Grace, who was treasurer from 2014-2016, and the current executive officers regarding the apparent absence of the organization's 2014 tax forms.“I am uncertain as to why these records were not provided to or accessible to the current officers in a more-timely fashion,” Gibbs said.A second issue was a discrepancy of $5,823.05 between Grace’s treasurer’s report and bank statements. This discrepancy was found in August, after a new slate of executive board members ran and won positions in July, replacing Grace and the rest of the executive board.While Gibbs said they weren’t able to quickly reconcile the the discrepancies in the accounting exactly, “it is clear that the discrepancies between the reports and the bank statements are largely accounted for by uncleared deposits and debits.”Grace has previously said her report included transactions not yet cleared in the bank account, adding that she maintained a detailed ledger of revenues and expenses, which she shared with the PTO board.“I’m glad to see that he was able to go and meet with them and kind of come out and say this issue resolve,” said Nathan Cotton, the campaign manager for Sarah Grace for State Representative. “Because from our perspective it has been and we knew the whole time that she had done nothing wrong.”Cotton continued by saying the superintendent laid to rest any suspicion that Grace had broken the law or had been irresponsible with other people’s money.“Based upon our review of the information today, I do not believe that there is anything I am required to report to other authorities,” Gibbs said.