“The issue of whether or not the Academy’s audit was incorrectly stated at the time is directly related to the original federal investigation and resulting criminal proceedings, and would not by itself appear to constitute a new crime or rise to a level that law enforcement would be involved,” MDE spokesman Martin Ackley wrote this week in an email to the Record-Eagle.
If you'd only read the story in today's Record-Eagle, you might think someone requested that the Michigan Department of Education (MDE) conduct a criminal investigation of the Grand Traverse Academy — but you'd be wrong.
On March 31, 2017, I emailed a formal complaint to the MDE (copied simultaneously to every member of the Grand Traverse Academy board), asking the department to review the Grand Traverse Academy’s June 30, 2014 financial audit, focusing on the board's decision to credit Steven Ingersoll with a $1.8 million debt repayment.
When auditors from the accounting firm Dennis, Gartland & Niergarth noted in the Grand Traverse Academy's June 30, 2013 financial audit that Ingersoll had withheld repayment of his overpaid fees, Ingersoll led a concerted effort that pushed against on the auditor's findings — actions that ultimately led to the complaint I filed.
That's it.
No wild-eyed allegations or a breathless attempt at self-promotion, just a hard-nosed request for a close examination of the source details (like actual bank statements) that confirmed to the Grand Traverse Academy board that Ingersoll had indeed paid back the money.
Here's why:that questionable decision by the board excused a huge portion of Steven Ingersoll's outstanding debt, leaving him with a $1.6 million debt balance, later written off to bad debt by the end of the fiscal year ending June 30, 2014.
However, if the board refused to go along with Ingersoll's deception, it would have been faced with writing off $3.4 million to bad debt, not $1.6 million.
The repayment claim, first proffered by Ingersoll in a June 16, 2013 letter to then-board attorney Doug Bishop, was invalidated in October 2015 during Ingersoll's sentencing hearing by federal prosecutors and an IRS criminal investigator.
According to a federal court document filed on October 19, 2015, Ingersoll failed to disclose that he had also transferred funds from the GTA account to his SSM account. The net impact of transfers made by Ingersoll from July 1, 2012 to December 31, 2012 between the accounts for GTA and SSM was that SSM, and therefore Ingersoll, received $114,700 more from GTA then the GTA received from SSM. The October 19, 2015 document revealed Ingersoll transferred $1,748,300 to the GTA, but transferred $1,863,000 back to SSM.
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Instead of providing legitimate bank records as requested initially by Bishop, Ingersoll provided crudely-forged “bank statement entries” that were accepted without further investigation by the board.
(Stunning insider collusion among Ingersoll, Mark Noss and Kaye Mentley leading up to acceptance of Ingersoll's“bank statement details” was revealed in a recent post on this blog.)
Once documents contradicting Steven Ingersoll’s $1,813,330 “repayment” assertion were entered into evidence by the federal government, the Grand Traverse Academy board had a fiduciary duty to act.
But it didn't.
In the use of public funds, public officials are held to the standard of care and fiduciary duties that a trustee owes a beneficiary under Michigan law.
It’s clear this case was on the board’s radar, and that it was likely aware in late 2015 that the government’s October 19, 2015 analysis of Steven Ingersoll’s “repayments” contradicted his version — the version Mark Noss told Ingersoll in a December 9, 2013 email “every board member saw and understood.”
The interests of the GTA board would not be well-served if the board acknowledged a seven-figure deficit resulting from Ingersoll’s misuse of state funds that should have drawn greater scrutiny by MDE and Lake Superior State University (LSSU), and also harm GTA’s bond rating.
It should have been an easy task for the MDE's Internal Control Officer to request source documents and other pertinent details from the GTA board.
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But on Friday, at 1:31pm, the MDE's spokesperson Martin Ackley sent me the following email in response, I initially presumed, to my May 31 email requesting an update on the complaint I'd filed March 31, 2017.
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However, 13 minutes after Ackley responded to me, he sent a nearly identical email to a reporter at the Traverse City Record-Eagle.
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Although the Record-Eagle may have trolled my blog for this story, it failed to request or review my complaint, or contact me for a comment. In addition, that story served only to discredit the red-hot allegation that the GTA board willingly went along with Ingersoll's deception.
Not a surprise, when you consider then-president Brad Habermehl, testifying during Steven Ingersoll's sentencing hearing on December 8, 2015, admitted under oath that the GTA board had waived recovery and “agreed to excuse the 5 million” Ingersoll owed the school.
Here are the guts of my complaint:
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On Monday, June 5, I will be responding to Mr. Ackley and the MDE, expressing my displeasure with the Department's deliberate misinterpretation of my March 31, 2017 complaint.
Oh, and I will be refiling that complaint...and sending a copy to Richard Cunningham in the Michigan Attorney General's office.
Come on, don't you want to know the truth?
If you'd only read the story in today's Record-Eagle, you might think someone requested that the Michigan Department of Education (MDE) conduct a criminal investigation of the Grand Traverse Academy — but you'd be wrong.
On March 31, 2017, I emailed a formal complaint to the MDE (copied simultaneously to every member of the Grand Traverse Academy board), asking the department to review the Grand Traverse Academy’s June 30, 2014 financial audit, focusing on the board's decision to credit Steven Ingersoll with a $1.8 million debt repayment.
When auditors from the accounting firm Dennis, Gartland & Niergarth noted in the Grand Traverse Academy's June 30, 2013 financial audit that Ingersoll had withheld repayment of his overpaid fees, Ingersoll led a concerted effort that pushed against on the auditor's findings — actions that ultimately led to the complaint I filed.
That's it.
No wild-eyed allegations or a breathless attempt at self-promotion, just a hard-nosed request for a close examination of the source details (like actual bank statements) that confirmed to the Grand Traverse Academy board that Ingersoll had indeed paid back the money.
Here's why:that questionable decision by the board excused a huge portion of Steven Ingersoll's outstanding debt, leaving him with a $1.6 million debt balance, later written off to bad debt by the end of the fiscal year ending June 30, 2014.
However, if the board refused to go along with Ingersoll's deception, it would have been faced with writing off $3.4 million to bad debt, not $1.6 million.
The repayment claim, first proffered by Ingersoll in a June 16, 2013 letter to then-board attorney Doug Bishop, was invalidated in October 2015 during Ingersoll's sentencing hearing by federal prosecutors and an IRS criminal investigator.
 |
Instead of providing legitimate bank records as requested initially by Bishop, Ingersoll provided crudely-forged “bank statement entries” that were accepted without further investigation by the board.
(Stunning insider collusion among Ingersoll, Mark Noss and Kaye Mentley leading up to acceptance of Ingersoll's“bank statement details” was revealed in a recent post on this blog.)
Once documents contradicting Steven Ingersoll’s $1,813,330 “repayment” assertion were entered into evidence by the federal government, the Grand Traverse Academy board had a fiduciary duty to act.
But it didn't.
In the use of public funds, public officials are held to the standard of care and fiduciary duties that a trustee owes a beneficiary under Michigan law.
It’s clear this case was on the board’s radar, and that it was likely aware in late 2015 that the government’s October 19, 2015 analysis of Steven Ingersoll’s “repayments” contradicted his version — the version Mark Noss told Ingersoll in a December 9, 2013 email “every board member saw and understood.”
The interests of the GTA board would not be well-served if the board acknowledged a seven-figure deficit resulting from Ingersoll’s misuse of state funds that should have drawn greater scrutiny by MDE and Lake Superior State University (LSSU), and also harm GTA’s bond rating.
It should have been an easy task for the MDE's Internal Control Officer to request source documents and other pertinent details from the GTA board.
But on Friday, at 1:31pm, the MDE's spokesperson Martin Ackley sent me the following email in response, I initially presumed, to my May 31 email requesting an update on the complaint I'd filed March 31, 2017.
However, 13 minutes after Ackley responded to me, he sent a nearly identical email to a reporter at the Traverse City Record-Eagle.
Although the Record-Eagle may have trolled my blog for this story, it failed to request or review my complaint, or contact me for a comment. In addition, that story served only to discredit the red-hot allegation that the GTA board willingly went along with Ingersoll's deception.
Not a surprise, when you consider then-president Brad Habermehl, testifying during Steven Ingersoll's sentencing hearing on December 8, 2015, admitted under oath that the GTA board had waived recovery and “agreed to excuse the 5 million” Ingersoll owed the school.
Here are the guts of my complaint:
On Monday, June 5, I will be responding to Mr. Ackley and the MDE, expressing my displeasure with the Department's deliberate misinterpretation of my March 31, 2017 complaint.
Oh, and I will be refiling that complaint...and sending a copy to Richard Cunningham in the Michigan Attorney General's office.
Come on, don't you want to know the truth?