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Moncure rebuild expense reduced
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JULY1,29, 2016 | NORTHERN VIRGINIA MEDIA SERVICES JULY 2016 | NORTHERN VIRGINIA MEDIA SERVICES
School Fallonboard pleads no contest to saves thousands embezzlement on copier service
FARMERS’ MARKET
TRACY BELL TRACY BELL
T
tbell@insidenova.com tbell@insidenova.com
Former Stafford he Stafford County School Board County School Board agreed Tuesday to a $588,000 fourmember Fallon year Emily contract with Ricoh USA of enteredfora copier no-contest Chicago services beginning in plea to embezzlement fiscal 2017. charges Monday in contract was for The initial proposed Stafford County Cir$650,000. cuit Court. A competing Xerox representative She is charged with EMILY FALLON attended four school board meetings this three felony counts of spring urging the board to consider using embezzlement and three felony counts of Xerox, which produced the lowest bid. obtaining money by false pretenses. Each Stafford County Schools used charge alone couldPublic earn her as much as 20 Ricoh for the past 10 years and has used years in jail and a $2,500 fine. Xerox the past.do not reflect her time on Thin e charges School board members did not choose to the school board, but instead are related Xerox, but tothanked itswhen representative June 2013 June 2015, she served as forpresident saving of the schoolsElementary $250,000 School’s over Moncure four years based on its lower bid and for Parent-Teacher Organization. According to court records, Fallon the is acproviding information that helped cused of money. embezzling more than $23,000, board save transferring onto husS cho ol b oPTO ard funds memb ers herand band’s American Express credit card and Superintendent Bruce Benson expressed conducting objectionable and disappointment in the wayATM the cash school check transactions. system handled the matter, but said it Fallon paid half ofatthe would causelater them toback lookclose moretoclosely money to the PTO, court records state. future business dealings. But in 2015, PTO members alerted the “I think we could’ve been clearer in our Stafford County Sheriff ’s Office to considcommunication with our vendors,” said erable bookkeeping irregularities during Benson. Fallon’s tenure. The Stafford County ComIn April, theAttorney board deferred a decision monwealth’s Office, working with onthe which copier company to useenough and sheriff ’s office, then gathered decided to offurther itswrongdoing options. evidence allegedreview criminal There were the fiveinformation bidding companies to present to a Stafford involved. grand jury. There, board Fallon school represented the FALLON member Patricia Healy, Griffis-Widewater disSCHOOL PAGE PAGE 1313 trict onHill, the school board R-Rock challenged
School board to cut $ 6.4 M to align project to budget By TRACY BELL »tbell@insidenova.com
he Stafford County School Board agreed to cut millions of dollars from the Anne E. Moncure Elementary School rebuild. The school board met for a work session July 22 and later moved to eliminate $6.4 million in costs through $3.5 million in costcutting measures and by using $2.9 million marked for other projects. The move will align Locally harvested produce gets prime display as crowds browse and shop the stand operated by C&T Produce at the North the project with the county Stafford Farmers’ Market. This year the total number of vendors has increased to around 30 at the same location, the parksupervisors’ budget, according ing lot of the Stafford Medical Pavilion on the Stafford Hospital campus. The market is open Sundays from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. to the plan. until November. ALEKS DOLZENKO | INSIDENOVA The original proposed design, procurement and construction schedule would not have allowed the new school to open in September 2018, as planned. The design portion will need to be finished by December in order to stay on course, according to school TRACY BELL of approval. The grant works as a 50 internal investigations and comdivision staff. tbell@insidenova.com percent match with local funding plaints is significant,” Decatur said. The school board decided to he Stafford County Sheriff ’s from the county. The cost to Staf- “Body-worn cameras are a psychoeliminateOffice the wider hallways has applied for a U.S. ford is $400,000 a year for five years. logical deterrent to misbehavior on that were originally planned Department of Justice grant Stafford County Sheriff Da- both sides of the lens. The benefits and to build a regular school that could fund 100 of its vid Decatur told InsideNoVa that exceed the drawbacks associated gym, as opposed to a commudeputies with a body cam- implementing a body-camera pro- with the cost and time to manage nity gym. Certain furniture, era. equipment purgram is a vast undertaking. The goal the program.” fixtures and If received, funding Using the technology in the dechases would be full postponed to of the of the program is to achieve a high grantyears. would allow deputies in the level of transparency with the com- partment’s field operations division future office’s field operations division to munity while protecting the rights would allow for the most immediThe new cost of the school carry the of citizens and deputies alike, he ate and expansive contact with the project is cameras. estimated at $30 The sheriff ’s office applied for said. community served, Demillion. The oppressive heatbenefit the pastof weekend keep everyone close to air conditioning.CAMERA Some had to the grant catur said. “…The havingdidn’t video Using theafter the Stafford County work in the hot humidity, while others cooled off in the 82-degree water of Woodlands PAGE Pool in13 North MONCURE St af ford C ounty footage for prosecution, training, Board milof Supervisors gave its stamp $2.9 Stafford. Having fun at the pool Sunday with her father, Juan Castillo, is 3-year-old Jacelyn. For more PAGE 13 lion on the images and some advice from NOVEC on dealing with the heat, turn to Page 6.
Stafford seeks funding for 100 body cameras
STAFFORD COUNTY SUN
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