District trustees voted 6-1 Monday evening in favor of auditing a newly discovered $8 million financial account while postponing the scheduled sanctioning of board Fiscal/Audit Review Committee chair Phillip Yarbrough for code of ethics violations until the next meeting.
“I don’t really think there is any fraud going on in our district, but I always applaud looking at the numbers because, at the end of the day, we’re here to make sure that our taxpayer dollars are well spent,” said Rancho Santiago Community College District Board Vice President Daisy Tong.
Earlier this summer, the board was made aware of millions in insurance rebates being managed since 2012 by third-party vendor Alliance of Schools for Cooperative Insurance (ASCIP).
According to reporting in September by the Daily Pilot, insurance rebates were held in trust by ASCIP, intended to pay down future premiums or be transferred back to the general fund at the board’s discretion. Records show that before June 2024 money had been removed 13 times by district administrators without board approval…