Federal authorities are investigating whether a former Berkeley City College employee purposely paid students more than $327,000 in extra financial aid.
Robert Vergas, 58, retired in April, shortly before he was to be fired by the Peralta Community College District. He has denied any wrongdoing and said he is being blamed for deficiencies in the district's financial-aid process.
"Really, in the end, it has very little to do with me personally," the Oakland resident said. "It's a systemic error, if one occurred."
District leaders have said little about the case, citing an investigation by the FBI and Department of Education. But they acknowledged the federal government ordered the school to pay back the money; Peralta has repaid $40,000 and will pay about $37,000 per quarter until the balance is paid off.
An independent auditor uncovered the problem last year during an examination of Peralta's 2005-06 budget. The audit also found that the Berkeley campus had underpaid Pell Grant recipients by nearly $40,000, money the Department of Education also has ordered to be repaid to the students.
In all, more than 400 mistakes were found in the files of 1,135 aid recipients, according to a July letter from the federal agency to Berkeley City College. It was not clear Wednesday whether the same problems existed in the 2007-08 fiscal year, which ended June 30.
Although the district plans to pay back the federal money, taxpayers and Advertisementstudents likely won't be on the hook for the restitution, said Peralta spokesman Jeff Heyman.
"We're obviously going to seek reimbursement (from Vergas) if this goes criminal," he said.
Vergas called the accusations unfounded and said district leaders barely explained their suspicions and did not give him a chance to explain before announcing their intention to fire him. Their April letter to him cited negligence and incompetence as the reasons, he said.
"How can you say that to someone who was there for 15 years without a problem?" Vergas said.
Vergas' absence has led to its own problems this month as all four Peralta colleges continue to recover from a computer glitch that delayed financial-aid checks to thousands of students. Because of a lack of staffing in the Berkeley financial-aid office, that campus has fallen behind in issuing the tardy checks, said Tom Smith, the district's chief financial officer.
"It was kind of a two-person shop, with Vergas in charge," Smith said. Hundreds of students have yet to be paid, but "we're issuing checks like crazy."
0 comments:
Post a Comment