- May 2, 2024
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Flagler Schools provided an update on its efforts to recover some of the $719,000 it lost in a cybertheft scheme last fall. But the update at the April 16 School Board workshop provided little information other than to assure the public that it is still working to recover funds and has updated its financial processes.
“The district does continue to work through this process to try to recover as many funds as we can. And we are working through our local sheriff's office, the Secret Service, the bank and our risk management team.” Patty Wormeck, the district’s chief financial officer, said.
“Our financial processes in the finance world have been updated quite substantially to ensure that this does not happen again,” she added.
The district believed it was making a payment to H.A. Contracting Corp., the contractor for the Matanzas High School expansion project. In January, the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office said it recovered $19,700 it believed was sent to a money mule. When the district announced in October that it had been victimized Sheriff Rick Staly said during a press conference that it was unlikely the money will be recovered.
Wormeck said it is a very lengthy process, “but there was no breach on our end, so the data and the network is safe.”
Board member Cheryl Massaro asked Wormeck what the process was before the cybertheft was committed and what revisions have been made “so it never happens again.” But board member Colleen Conklin said she was concerned about the question because she didn’t want the district providing a script for future cybercriminals.
“I would hate for us to get into details of all of this publicly, especially if we're going to end up in litigation in the future,” Conklin added.
Superintendent LaShakia Moore told the board members that they can sit down individually with Wormeck and Ryan Deising, the district’s chief of technology and innovation, to privately ask questions and get details.
“But right now, the purpose really is for us to say this (hasn’t) gone away,” Moore said. “We're not ignoring it. We're not sweeping it under the rug. But it is a process that's going to take time. And right now, unfortunately or fortunately, however you look at it, it really is that you have to trust that we're working the different processes that we need to work in order to ensure that our system, our servers, all of those things are safe. And when we can publicly disclose everything that's happened, we will.”
