Forensic review finds preprogrammed signatures on district checks; auditor reports no evidence of payment misuse

An independent forensic review presented Sept. 25 to the Laguna Beach Unified School District board found preprogrammed signatures on county‑issued canceled checks and identified missing documentation for a subset of checks, but the auditor said the documents he reviewed did not show evidence of improper payments.

Brandon Waldron, senior manager in the fraud and forensics group that conducted the review, said the engagement examined contracts and signatures for the period Dec. 1, 2024, through March 30, 2025, plus a review of canceled checks at the superintendent’s request. He told trustees his team was provided 79 contract documents and that "there was only 1 contract that was actually signed by mister Valaria," a contract executed while that individual was still employed.

Waldron said his review compiled 1,153 checks during the scope period and that he received copies of 975 canceled checks. He reported 140 canceled checks were not provided to him and that the district explained some of those were not available from the county. On the checks he examined, he said he saw Gloria's name printed on all of them and that the printing was a county process tied to running the batch, not necessarily a human signature authorizing a payment at the moment of issuance: "the signature was preprogrammed, and so every time that it was hit ... the button was pushed to run the checks, they were automatically printed with that name."

Waldron told trustees he used board agendas, contracts, user access deactivation records and canceled checks as source material and that he found internal controls generally in place for checks greater than $5,000 (those are routed to the board). He said Mr. Valaria’s access to physically run checks was removed two days after his departure, which reduced his concern that the individual could have processed checks after leaving.

Board members questioned the scope and the 140 missing checks; Waldron said the report will include a work paper listing those checks, the vendor names and amounts so the board can review them further. When asked about cost, he said the engagement was a not‑to‑exceed contract and recalled it was in the low tens of thousands (the exact figure will be provided in the written report).

The presentation elicited follow‑up requests from trustees for the full written report and for procedural recommendations to strengthen controls; Waldron said he included four recommendations in his forthcoming report, including removing departed individuals' signature authority promptly (he said two weeks is reasonable absent red tape). The board did not take immediate action; trustees asked staff to bring the full report and any recommended next steps for consideration.