The Inglewood school board has issued its first public response to the arrest of trustee Trina Williams, who was booked Nov. 10 on charges of misusing public funds.

According to the Deputy District Attorney Juliet Schmidt of the Public Integrity Division, Williams is due to be arraigned Dec. 4 on charges she embezzled more than $7,500 from the district over a one-year period.

An audit by the Los Angeles County Office of Education was submitted to the district attorney in July, alleging that Williams overcharged the district for training and travel expenses between June 13, 2007 and Sept. 28, 2008.
Williams is now free on $25,000 bail. If convicted, she faces up to four years in state prison.

Reached on her cell phone last week, Williams would only say, “I can’t talk to you.”

In a Nov. 19 statement released by the board, IUSD officials expressed surprise at Williams’ arrest and said the audit was conducted with the full cooperation of the board, in order to ensure that all members and IUSD staff were in compliance with all financial procedures, policies and protocols.

“In regard to Ms. Williams, the auditors found that from the period of [May 2007 to September 2008,] Ms. Williams had received travel expense advances in excess of expenditures stated in expense report.

“Cash advances in excess of the actual expenditure must be repaid to the District. Although Ms. Williams asserted that many of her expense receipts were lost or misplaced, she nonetheless agreed to repay the $5,523 found by the auditors to be in excess of the approved expenditures. To date almost half of the outstanding balance has been repaid.”

The statement continued that the board and county auditors considered Williams’ conduct to be the result of accounting and administrative errors, and not intentional conduct.

However, the board added that it was not consulted and played no part in the district attorney’s decision to prosecute Williams.