Academy faces $500K shortfall

A Weyers Cave police training academy faces a $500,000 shortfall and has just enough money left in the bank to remain open seven more months, an academy official said Friday.

Following a monthlong internal investigation, Glenn Aylor, the board chairman of the Central Shenandoah Criminal Justice Training Academy, said the facility might have to appeal to its 59 member localities to help bridge the financial gap. The academy could face a temporary closing, he said.

The situation “came to [light] when the City of Waynesboro, which provides us with payroll services, hadn’t been reimbursed for three months of payroll services,” Aylor said.

When Aylor approached the academy’s former executive director, Mitch Banta, about the bookkeeping error, Aylor said he received an inadequate response.

“Those questions couldn’t be answered to my satisfaction,” he said. “That is what prompted the internal investigation.”

Since the beginning of the probe Aug. 27, Banta and Assistant Director Mary Garber have resigned, Aylor said. He declined to comment further.

In addition to discovering that the academy owes $126,000 to Waynesboro, Aylor said the board discovered the facility also faces a financial shortfall, which compounded to a half-million dollars over the years.

“I can only say that I was not advised of the financial discrepancies at the time that I was employed,” Banta said. “Whatever the account issues that contributed to this, they existed prior to my coming.”

Banta, who became executive director in 2008, said if he’d been informed of the academy’s financial problems, he would not have taken the job.

“What needed to be done there at the academy was outside the scope of my ability,” he said.

Authorities said the annual operating budget of the academy is $1.2 million to $1.3 million.

Should the academy fail to raise the money to bridge the shortfall, Aylor said the facility temporarily would close its doors.

“The worst-case scenario is we’d possibly have to shut the academy down for a couple of months,” he said.

Although he said he does not suspect criminal activity, Aylor contacted the Virginia State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigations to allow an independent agency to probe the case.

“We teach integrity, we preach integrity,” he said. “We need to live by the standards that we preach.”

The Weyers Cave academy serves 59 law enforcement agencies, including those in Waynesboro, Staunton and Augusta County. Localities pay membership fees on a yearly basis, usually at about $500 per individual, for an array of training including emergency communication, jail operations, and investigation techniques.

Area localities pay the academy about $40,000 annually for training courses, finance records show.

Over the past month, Aylor and members of the board cut classes to help save money, he said.

State budget cuts already pinched the academy and recently axed classes could force regional law enforcement officers to travel farther for specialized training.

Aylor said the academy already pays $40,000 annually to pay for the original construction costs of the facility.