[T]hieves operating electronically, possibly from out of the country, may be responsible for the theft of $50,000 from one of the bank accounts of the Pownal School District, school officials have reported.
“I was shocked,” Cindy Brownell, chair of the Pownal School District school board said. “We had never heard of anything like this happening in such a small town.”
Pownal, a town of about 3,500 residents tucked into the corner of southern Vermont between New York and Massachusetts, is a one-school district. Pownal Elementary School, with 266 students, is part of the Southwest Vermont Supervisory Union.
Brownell said she learned of the theft three weeks ago, when the supervisory union’s business manager, Renée Gordon, reported the funds missing from one of the school’s accounts.
Gordon did not immediately respond to calls and an email on Tuesday.
Brownell said insurance would cover the theft, a substantial sum for a community with an annual school budget of about $1.5 million.
“We’re a small school, and we live in a town that has very little business, if any at all, so every tax dollar is important,” she said.
The theft follows a global trend in cybercrime, which has increased 30 percent in the last three years. Estimates are at least $445 million was stolen electronically last year.
Brownell said the FBI has been involved in the investigation.
Kraig LaPorte, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Burlington, had no comment on the situation on Tuesday afternoon.