FLEMINGSBURG — Kentucky State Police arrested Greg Conway, former director of district-wide operations and finance for the Fleming County school district on Thursday afternoon.
Conway faces the charge of abuse of public trust more than $100,000.
According to Fleming County Superintendent Brian Creasman, he and board attorney Monica Hill were made aware of discrepancies with the school’s public funding back in June.
“Mrs. Hill, the board attorney, and I have been working closely with the district’s financial consultant, the Kentucky State Police and the Commonwealth Attorney’s Office. As the investigation continues we have learned that the irregularities were so complex that even our external auditors were unable to detect them each year. Fleming County Schools continues to investigate this matter as we make sure we fully understand how this individual was able to manipulate the system. Over the past several weeks we continued to discover irregularities that only added another layer to this already complex investigation,” Creasman said in a letter written on Thursday.
The investigation began shortly after Conway stepped down from his position and left the school district.
Creasman went on to say the discrepancies were so great, that the investigation was handed over to Kentucky State Police. A third party financial consultant was also hired to help the district office find further irregularities.
“What we have discovered up to this point in the investigation is an individual who, over the course of several years, orchestrated the manipulation of people, the altering of district financial systems and safeguards, and abused positional authority all for personal gain,” Creasman said.
After discovering the missing funds, Creasman said he and the board would work toward creating safeguards to ensure proper accountability of public funds.
Evidence of such safeguards was the creation of a director of business and finance and a subsequent hiring of Andy Plank to that position.
“We created a director of business and finance that will work with our accounts. However, it will also help with the segregation of duties as well and puts more safeguards in place, obviously so things don’t go awry again,” Creasman said.
Creasman said several times that the fund discrepancies were not due to an organizational issue, but in fact pointed towards the act of one individual who is allegedly Conway.
“Fleming County Schools is continuing our internal investigation parallel to the external investigation by the Kentucky State Police,” Creasman said. “Our financial consultant is sharing information regularly with the state police as we seek to discover precisely how the irregularities occurred.”
Conway was lodged in the Mason County Detention Center, where he remained as of Thursday evening.
