Reporter Central Kitsap
ALOHA! Hawaiian grill getting lots of buzz Page 14
FRIDAY, MARCH 22, 2013 | Vol. 28, No. 27 | www.CENTRALKITSAPREPORTER.com | 50¢
Auditor’s report finds second fault in sheriff’s office Sheriff’s office disagrees, say fault lies with employee By WES MORROW wmorrow@soundpublishing.com
Wes Morrow/staff photo
Kaitlyn Duarte, Krista Holden and Rachel Kagan show managers at the Silverdale Lowe’s the process behind their inventions. The group of three is part of Central Kitsap High School’s SkillsUSA team that will compete at the state level in April.
Engineering students showcase career skills
By WES MORROW wmorrow@soundpublishing.com
Nine students from Central Kitsap High School’s SkillsUSA chapter visited the Silverdale Lowe’s on Tuesday to present their work to store managers. The presentation was part of the culmination of a grant provided by Lowe’s to the school. SkillsUSA is a nonprofit organization that works with students, teachers and businesses around the world to build competitive career skills. Lowe’s gave $1 million to SkillsUSA. Part of that donation went to chapters in local schools like Central Kitsap in the form of grants. CK received $11,000 from Lowe’s to further its own SkillsUSA
program. Jim Adamson, Central Kitsap’s SkillsUSA advisor, said they’ve been able to purchase three rolling carts full of tools, team’s display items and materials through the grant. “A lot of the tools and material come out of my garage and my pocket,” Adamson said. “Let me tell you, this (grant) is a god-send.” Central Kitsap has students participating in a number of SkillsUSA categories, such as aerospace manufacturing, computer repair and animation. But the groups presenting at Lowe’s were all part of the school’s engineering program. Each of the three engineering groups spent the school year brainstorming, researching and designing an invention. That process, and the eventual outcome of the inven-
tion itself was what each group described to Lowe’s managers. Kaitlyn Duarte, Krista Holden and Rachel Kagan highlighted two inventions, a lawn mower fertilizer attachment and collapsible fish stairs for salmon. Larisa Brown, Maggie Cordray and Michael Vining showcased their reuse of kitchen items to create a coffee scented air-freshener. Joshua Udell, Austin Rogers and Andrew Guertin described a multipurpose tool that is both a nut driver and a nail gun. Adamson is taking 30 students to the state competition in Renton April 11 through 13. He said he anticipates they’ll do quite well. Last year, he said, Central Kitsap won five different events and sent eight students to nationals.
The Washington State Auditor’s Office released a second report this week detailing issues within the Kitsap County Sheriff ’s Office. This report and new set of issues were discovered during the same audit period as the first report released last week, from May to October 2012. Auditors performed a surprise cash count on October 24, 2012. They reported finding more than $16,000 in cash and 314 checks, totaling $29,738, that had not been deposited. The cash and checks were found scattered throughout the office of the fiscal technician in charge of accounts payable and receivable. The technician responsible was the same employee found to be at fault for the misappropriation of more than 1,100 hours of leave for 110 employees in the sheriff ’s office. The employee was moved to the “less complex” role of fiscal technician after the time-keeping discrepancies were uncovered last May, according to the sheriff ’s office. In its response to the auditors’ first report, the sheriff ’s office claimed the employee had been purposefully obstructing the county’s ability to discover the mistakes she was
making. Soon after the employee was moved to her new role the sheriff ’s office began noticing that payments were not being made in a timely manner, according to Deputy Scott Wilson. “We were getting second and third notices of billing,” Wilson said, which indicated bills were not being paid in
Sheriff Steve Boyer
a timely manner. Wilson later said the discrepancy was not actually discovered by late payments, but by mismatching records. When it discovered the new issue, the office contacted auditors again and requested help to see how much, if any, money had been misplaced, Wilson said. Wilson said he could not comment on whether red flags were raised about the employee’s future performance during the transition. He did say, however, that no additional oversight was added by the sheriff ’s office to the fiscal technician position when the employee was moved there from her See SHERIFF, A13