HUMBOLDT — The Horizon School Division suspects an employee stole close to $3,800 in fuel, according to a quarterly report from the province.
The suspected theft of fuel happened from September 2022 to February 2023. The employee is no longer employed by the school division.
"We track all our fuel consumption, when there are major anomalies, we have to look into it, we have to verify it was theft," said Kevin Garinger, Horizon's director of education. "With video evidence, we found that the person was filling their personal vehicle and filling up jerry cans on camera. When 500 litres turns to 1,000 litres in a week, that doesn’t necessarily mean anything but we start to monitor and ask questions, and we needed to investigate this further."
The matter was reported to the RCMP and charges have been laid. The amount of fuel that was reported stolen was $3,791.80.
The Ministry of Education has a policy in place for school divisions to report losses of money or property greater than $500 that are due to fraud or similar illegal acts by employees, suppliers or contractors of the school division. This policy aligns with the reporting of losses throughout executive government, Crown corporations and health regions. The ministry has tabled its report to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts.
The last previous loss reported by Horizon School Division was outlined in the 2022-23 school year second quarter report.
