WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – Days before residents of Palm Beach County are to decide on whether to increase the sales tax rate to fund local governments, they’re learning the hard truth about how their local school district manages its money.

The Palm Beach County school board is meeting tonight to discuss a recent audit of the district’s transportation department that shows about 234,000 gallons of gas went missing from its fueling stations on nights, weekends and holidays over the last three years, CBS 12 reports.

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“According to the audit, surveillance cameras are now being recommended at the district’s eight fueling stations,” the news site reports. “Normally, only school buses and district vehicles are able to fuel up, and the pumps are locked after hours. But district employees are now being questioned and there are concerns gas cards were shared. The possibility of fraud is also still on the table.”

The estimated loss totals $513,567, and is likely the result of transportation employees sharing gas cards without proper controls on tracking fuel use.

The Sun-Sentinel reports:

The fuel audit found that 4,790 transactions were made using cards by 22 district departments or schools, but couldn’t determine how many actual people were involved since cards were shared.

The pumps are normally padlocked when the district is closed, and the only ones who have keys are supervisors of the fuel sites and school police, the audit said.

Payment cards belonging to the district’s transportation services department were used to get most of the fuel ($485,991). The transportation department includes bus drivers, route specialists, mechanics and managers.

Also used were cards assigned to school police ($15,043), facilities ($6,642) and school food service ($482). Several individual school cards were used as well, including Boynton Beach High ($1,745) and Atlantic High in Delray Beach ($924).

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The missing gas is part of a bigger pattern of dysfunction in the transportation department that also includes $3 million unanticipated overtime, mechanics hired without required Commercial Driver’s Licenses, and missed safety inspections on some school buses, according to the site.

District inspector general Lung Chiu said the audit revealed much more off-hours refueling than expected, but an investigation by school police found “there was no evidence to pinpoint anyone.”

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“We do have maintenance people working weekends and police, maybe if they have someone on call,” Chiu said. “But what we saw on average was too high.”

District COO Donald Fennoy vowed to take actions to address the problem by the end of the month.

“Transportation will put procedures in place by November 1 to review refueling records to ensure legitimacy of off-hours fueling,” Fennoy wrote, according to the Sun-Sentinel. “We will explore the possibility of installing cameras as part of our security and monitoring as part of our accountability system.”

The audit comes as Palm Beach County is asking residents on the Nov. 8 ballot to increase the county’s sales tax from 6 cents to dollar to 7 cents per dollar, a move that’s expected to generate $2.7 billion over the next 10 years, the Sun-Sentinel reports.

About half of the money would be handed over to the school district, which has a $1 billion list of school improvements that include new buses, rebuilding five schools and three bus depots, and upgrading technology.

Local charter schools, meanwhile, would get none of the money raised through the tax increase.