Stories like this pique my interest partly because I once was part of this community, and also because I wonder about the nature of the judgment handed down by the court.
Here’s the summary: A Jefferson County, Texas, judge has ordered two former Beaumont Independent School District administrators to pay the district $4 million apiece in funds they admitted to embezzling.
Devin McCraney once served asĀ BISD’s chief financial officer and Sharrika Allison was the district’s comptroller. I don’t know either of them, as they came on board long after my wife and I left Beaumont in January 1995.
District Judge Milton Shuffield ordered the two of them to pay $4 million each, plus another $93,000 in interest.
Here’s what makes me scratch my head.
I worked for nearly 37 years in daily journalism. I made a decent salary during a good bit of my working life. My combined salary over the course ofĀ my entire careerĀ never even came close to a fraction of the amount of money assessed by the judge in this embezzlement case.
How does the judge expect these individuals to pay back the money?
Did they pocket the money somewhere in a secret place? Will they be able to just hand it over once they uncover it?
I guess I should note that both of them received prison sentences, which took them out of the work force for several years.
I don’t know what these individuals earned while working for BISD, which has fallen on extremely hard times in recent years. The state education agency swooped in and took over day-to-day management of the district. Its former superintendent, Carroll Thomas, “retired” after helping steer the district into the tumult that resulted in the state takeover.
Now a district judge has orderedĀ these two former administratorsĀ to repay the district millions of dollars.
I’m a layman watching this story from afar. How does that work?