Some parents said former Ecker Hill International Middle School Principal Greg Proffit amassed nearly $13,000 in questionable spending when six teachers were allowed to travel at taxpayers’ expense to a conference in New York.
Members of the Ecker Hill School Community Council criticized Proffit for not receiving approval from the panel before green-lighting the expenditure. Funding from the Utah School LAND Trust Program was used to pay for the trip.
State law required members of the School Community Council to approve the expenditure before money was taken from the trust lands account, said Kate Riggs, a member of the Ecker Hill School Community Council.
“It’s not a proper expenditure of trust land funds,” Riggs said. “It didn’t follow the process.”
Council members met in a special meeting to discuss the matter on Feb. 4. The meeting was also attended by Proffit and Park City School District Superintendent Ray Timothy. Proffit is director of data assessment and alternative education for the Park City School District.
“It sounds like there is recognition that this circumvented the process that is laid out in the statute,” Riggs said. “There needs to be some acknowledgement that this didn’t follow the process.”
Money used to send the teachers to New York was taken from the School Community Council’s budget, Riggs said.
“It’s [$13,000] that has been taken out of our budget and needs to come back,” Riggs said.
The School Community Council is made up of parents and school staff. Schools have individual community councils, which develop long-range improvement goals for the students.
School community councils develop plans for spending funds from the Utah School LAND Trust Program. The lands are held by the state to create revenue for public schools.
Congress created a land trust comprised of a portion of the state to support public schools in Utah, according to the Utah State Office of Education.
School community councils were formed to recommend how funding from the trust lands is spent. Council members did not approve sending teachers to the New York conference last fall. The conference provided training for teachers in the district’s International Baccalaureate Middle Years Program.
For several years Ecker Hill’s School Land Trust Plan has included a strategy to implement the program.
“It seems that this action is in line with the school’s history There was never any intent to mislead or go around or not have approval,” Proffit said.
But Julie Eihausen, a member of the Ecker Hill School Community Council, said she doubts that last year’s panel would have supported sending teachers to New York.
“I personally would have had a really hard time spending $13,000 for that conference and I would have argued against it,” she said.
Eihausen said a school trust education specialist at the Utah Office of Education said Ecker Hill council members did not approve the trip expense.
“I don’t think [Proffit] got any personal gain from the expenditure, but I think it was an end run around the council,” Eihausen said.
School Community Councilman David Hedderly-Smith said district policies that guide the spending of land trust funds should be tightened.
“I think we stumbled on this one a little bit,” he said.
The problem may run throughout the Park City School District. Principals in other schools might have violated state law when they spent school trust funds.
According to John Hanrahan, a member of the Ecker Hill School Community Council, “We’re going to come out of this with a more clarified district policy.”