By Matt Sepic, KWMU
Venice, Ill. – A Metro East school district is getting a low-interest emergency assistance loan from the state of Illinois to help pay bills while it corrects bookkeeping errors.
The Venice Community School District across the river from North St. Louis is getting $250,000, or about $1,000 per student, to be paid off over nine years.
The state oversight panel running the schools approved the arrangement.
Interim Superintendent Ron Ganschinietz said bookkeepers have begun trying to account for $3 million in funds.
"One of the things that has to be done here is the creation of an accounting system," Ganschinietz said. "There was no accounting system so to speak, no books, just pieces of paper coming in. That's all being organized into an appropriate system now."
The state appointed the oversight panel this month after finding inadequate bookkeeping over the past several years.