MONCKS CORNER, S.C. – The Berkeley County School District recently fired its chief financial officer after an investigation revealed he allegedly embezzled nearly $400,000 over several years.

Superintendent Brenda Blackburn fired long-serving district CFO Brantley D. Thomas III in early February after learning he converted 10 refund checks totaling $382,252 into cashier’s checks and deposited them in his personal account, the Post and Courier reports.

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Thomas, 60, worked for the district since 1993, had a salary of $130,050, and oversaw a nearly $260 million general fund. District officials learned of his alleged embezzlement, which dates back to 2012, from Wells Fargo officials and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The case comes after large property tax increases in 2015 and 2016 that helped propel four new conservatives to the school board. The board in January received a financial audit from the accounting firm Greene, Finney & Horton that gave the district a top rating.

The week after terminating Thomas, board members explained the situation to the public and said Thomas confessed to the embezzlement, WCSC reports.

They also voted to fire Greene, Finney & Horton, launch an internal investigation, and give Blackburn authority to take “any and all necessary actions to secure the financial stability of the district,” according to the Post and Courier

“We have concerns that there may be further amounts misappropriated and are committed to getting to the bottom to discover any and all wrongdoing,” vice chairman Mac McQuillin said in a prepared statement. “We want to act swiftly to stabilize the financial security of this district, and we acknowledge that our ultimate duty is to the children of our schools and the citizens of Berkeley County.”

The board released the details of the investigation in an effort to be transparent, McQuillin said. “This statement is evidence of our commitment to be transparent and advise the public to the extent we can at this point,” he said. “I trust these unprecedented actions of the board – both to cooperate fully with the FBI and to be transparent in disclosing as much as we can to the public – will help build the public’s trust that this board is committed to righting wrongs.”

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District spokesman Donnie Porter said Blackburn has taken over the finance department “and she is confident the district’s current financial supervisors and staff are very capable of handling the day-to-day operations at this point.”

Less than a month prior, Larry Finney, the man who conducted the district’s last financial audit, credited the district’s financial system with “effective internal controls,” though he noted that the firm used a sampling technique that did not examine every transaction.