COLUMBUS, Ohio — A former business manager at a Columbus charter school diverted hundreds of thousands of dollars in public school payments into her own accounts, and a state audit has now put the full price tag on the scheme: findings for recovery totaling more than $480,000 against Michelle Scott, a former employee of Westside Academy in Columbus’ Hilltop neighborhood, 614Now reported from the Ohio Auditor of State’s audit.
The Auditor of State issued findings for recovery of more than $480,000 against Scott, including more than $363,000 already ordered as criminal restitution, plus more than $116,000 in improper tuition reimbursements and tax penalties and interest, according to 614Now’s report of the audit.
The criminal case is already decided. Scott pleaded guilty in March to second-degree felony theft, 614Now reported, and was sentenced in the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas to a minimum of four years and a maximum of six years in prison, followed by mandatory post-release control lasting between 18 months and three years.
The mechanics of the theft, as the audit lays them out, were simple — and they worked for years because almost nobody was checking. The auditor’s Special Investigations Unit began investigating in March 2023 after a complaint was filed about suspected theft, according to the audit cited by 614Now. Scott, who was hired in 2012 and resigned in September 2022, redirected 19 payments intended for school vendors into her personal bank accounts, totaling nearly $270,000, the investigation found.
The largest single thread was $162,000 recorded as payments to FuelEd, a company providing online foreign-language courses, according to 614Now. The audit found that bank routing and account information had been altered to direct the payments to an account Scott owned. The scheme only surfaced after she was gone: the school attempted a $17,500 payment to FuelEd in January 2023, months after Scott’s resignation, and when the vendor reported the payment had never arrived, the school discovered the altered information, 614Now reported.
Investigators also found Scott altered credit card statements to conceal personal expenses — in one example cited in the report, a $2,000 hotel charge was changed to appear as a purchase from Micro Center, according to 614Now. Scott could authorize electronic bank transfers despite a school policy requiring the director’s approval, and she made credit card purchases and processed payments without review by other employees or management, the audit found.
The audit’s own language names the root cause. “The lack of oversight and inappropriate concentration of responsibilities resulted in the failure to maintain accurate and complete fixed asset records,” the audit stated, as quoted by 614Now. “Failure to maintain proper documentation and conduct periodic inventories increases the risk of financial reporting errors, difficulties locating assets, and undetected loss or misappropriation. During the Period, we determined Ms. Scott purchased items, including but not limited to, laptops, computers, tablets, and phones, that could not be located at the Academy and were not related to Academy operations,” the audit stated, according to 614Now.
Westside Academy is a public charter school, which means the money at issue is public money — state and federal education dollars routed through a school that operates independently of Columbus City Schools but under state oversight. Stories like this one land differently in a school year when Columbus education news has also included brighter chapters, from the ‘Wimpy Kid’ author’s surprise visit to Oakland Park Elementary readers to hard statewide questions about which college programs survive, as in Bowling Green State’s plan to reconfigure or suspend 30 programs. Oversight is the thread that connects them: public institutions run on trust that someone is watching the books.
The audit called for stronger enforcement of the reimbursement rules and better documentation of purchases, according to 614Now — the standard prescription after a one-person finance office goes unchecked: separate the duties, require a second set of eyes on transfers, and inventory what the school buys.
What we know — and what we’re still waiting on: the audit’s findings, the guilty plea, the four-to-six-year sentence and the $3,000 Scott had paid toward her court-ordered restitution as of the report are all established, per 614Now’s reporting of the Auditor of State’s audit, and an exit conference was held on October 7 for the individuals representing the Academy. What is not yet public is how much of the remaining restitution and findings will ultimately be recovered, and what specific controls Westside Academy has put in place since.
What happens next: Scott serves her prison sentence under the Franklin County court’s judgment, restitution collection continues against the more than $363,000 criminal order, and the Auditor of State’s findings stand as the school’s roadmap — and its warning — for every public dollar that moves through the Hilltop campus from here on.
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