With the Alamance-Burlngton School System's top two financial officials indefinitely sidelined, one of them permanently and the other reportedly having hidden a scandal, the school system's superintendent has recommended elevating a third official to temporarily oversee the system's finances.
Accounts Manager Melinda Anderson has been appointed as acting finance officer with assistance from retired Wake County Chief Financial Officer Mark Winters, the school system announced. Anderson has been the accounts manager with ABSS since February 2023.
The Alamance-Burlington Board of Education has called a meeting for this Friday, Feb. 23 at 1 p.m. to consider Superintendent Dain Butler's recommendation at that Anderson be appointed as interim chief financial officer until a permanent replacement can be named.
Anderson's current salary is $47,170 a year.
Anderson's elevation follows a tumultuous start to the week for ABSS. On Monday Butler announced that CFO Kim McVey had been dismissed after months of financial turmoil and a looming $3.2 million budget deficit through the June 30 end of the current fiscal year.
Deputy Superintendent Lowell Rogers was supposed to oversee finances in the near term, but later Monday Rogers was served with a summons by the State Bureau of Investigation on a misdemeanor charge of failure to report a crime against a juvenile.
Butler announced Tuesday that Rogers had been suspended with pay. No term for the suspension was announced.
Wednesday evening WFMY-TV reported, based on a statement from the SBI, that the crime Rogers failed to report was the allegation in November that Eastlawn Elementary Principal Daniel McInnis, 43, sexually assaulted a 9-year-old on school property.
When asked by email about that, ABSS Public Information Officer Les Atkins said that the announcement about Anderson was the only information the school system had at that time.
