Wayland Schools Employee Fired

A Wayland Public Schools employee was fired in June after school officials discovered he had accessed restricted portions of the district’s accounting system without permission, according to Wayland Schools Superintendent Paul Stein. 

According to a fraud examination report, no evidence of financial fraud or theft was found.

The employee was fired in the wake of a fraud examination report detailing how that person used the schools’ accounting system (known as MUNIS) to increase his access security permissions and permissions for two other employees without them knowing.

According to the report by Sullivan & Rogers Company, the employee, used the increased access of one of the two employees to perform accounting functions that he was not allowed to do. The employee also created new and renamed accounts on the town’s ledger, transferred money to the schools’ expenditure accounts, reclassified expenditures, and redistributed payroll expenditures. Stein, citing personnel rules, declined to name the employee. 

Wayland Public Schools officials initiated an investigation in May after school employees discovered unauthorized access of district’s accounting system. The unauthorized activity began on Dec. 27, 2012, according to the report.

The report also details other accounting troubles. Some employees know the MUNIS passwords for other workers while others keep handwritten notes on their desks with passwords on them. Workers are also not required to change their passwords every 90 days and frequently do not log off the accounting system when they leave their desks. Also, the superuser password for the system had never been changed.

As a result, the report recommends the district take steps to improve policies and safeguards to prohibit unauthorized use of the accounting system. Stein told Wayland Patch those steps would be taken. 

"We believe that the recommended steps actually make it impossible for the same kind of breach to happen," Stein said.