Cassee Olin, blamed for Juneau school crisis, resigns as Wasilla’s finance director

What you need to know:

• Wasilla Finance Director Cassee Olin resigned last week, prompting a heated debate at a Wasilla City Council meeting. Council member Ian Crafton accused her of financial misconduct involving city purchase cards and what he described as deceptive accounting practices.
• Olin was hired by the city last year after resigning as administrative services director for the Juneau School District in late 2023.
• Her tenure in Juneau included overseeing flawed budgeting that led to a nearly $10 million deficit, according to Juneau school board members. She drew criticism for failing to account for declining student enrollment and repeated audit failures.

By Mark Sabbatini
Juneau Independent

Cassee Olin, blamed for the worst budget crisis in Juneau School District history after resigning in late 2023, has submitted another resignation as Wasilla's finance director as she faces accusations of lying and "blatant misuse of funds."

Olin’s resignation last Friday was publicly announced during a Wasilla City Council meeting Monday night, where the accusations against her sparked a clash about discussing the matter in an open meeting.

Among the issues raised were accounting practices for purchase cards (p-cards) used by city employees and the accuracy of information provided to at least some council members. Similar concerns were expressed by Juneau school board members a year and a half ago after an audit cited faulty accounting practices and the district found itself millions of dollars short of expectations. The issues in Wasilla do not appear to put the city at financial risk.

Wasilla Council member Ian Crafton brought up Olin’s latest resignation after a proposed hiring ordinance he favored, which required the police chief and finance director to be confirmed by the council, failed to pass by a narrowly divided vote.

"I really think it's something that needs to be considered because recently when I was reviewing our p-cards I had our finance director lying to my face," he said. "I would ask her questions, she would tell me one thing, and then we would look at the policy and it was something different."

Furthermore, Crafton said, "I saw what I believe to be blatant misuse of funds, recoding of funds strictly because they needed a way to make it work inside the budget, and then the council doesn't even want to talk about it. That ordinance was one of the most powerful provisions that the council could have used to make sure that stuff like that isn't happening inside this city."

Council members voting against the proposal stated it would overstep their authority under Wasilla’s strong-mayor system of government, and hiring a finance director, in particular, should be done by people with an expert understanding of the complexities of the job.

Attempts by the Independent to reach Olin on Tuesday were unsuccessful.

An attempt to cut off Crafton’s remarks during Monday’s meeting was made by City Attorney Holly Wells, who said airing such accusations at a public meeting was improper. She also said Crafton was making “allegations against the city and its compliance with laws that, I having reviewed the situation, do not find warranted.”

"We have a resignation from our finance director," Wells said. "And I think before we talk about conduct or behavior or performance, I really think that's in the purview of the mayor, and (the administration) works hard to maintain confidentiality and consistency."

Crafton said he was discussing public financial information available that show "we have policies in place in the city for how we conduct business and we had people blatantly not following them."

"It's really odd that immediately following not only mine, but other members of this council reviewing the p-card statements, that three days later — after I asked some very serious questions — our finance director resigns," he said. "I find that to be a really odd situation here." Wells attempted to step in again.

"I would remind you that you have all taken an oath to do things that are in the best interest of—"

"And I believe this to be in the best interest of the city," Crafton retorted.

A few more exchanged remarks led to a brief recess, after which Crafton reiterated concerns about the city’s p-card and travel policies.

Another council member, Nikki Velock, said during the meeting it appears there may have been issues with p-card receipts and account codes being changed by staff — and it’s the responsibility of city administrators rather than council members to make sure that data is correct.

"Why would the council go over the method of payments?" she said. "We've already approved a budget. Those account codes should be being used for where they were appropriated. If they are not then that needs to be looked at. That should be management. That should been the finance director showing ‘Is this all going correctly?’ When those memos came through that finance director should have said ‘Who's in charge of that? Oh my gosh, maybe people are not attaching receipts. They better be doing that. There are procedures that need to be followed.’"

Wasilla Mayor Glenda Ledford, referenced as the contact person for discussing such matters, did not respond to phone and email messages from the Independent on Tuesday seeking comment.

Error-filled exit from Juneau

Olin resigned as administrative services director of the Juneau School District on Dec. 1, 2023, following a presentation by an auditor that reported significant faulty accounting practices for a second straight year. Within a few weeks, a temporary budget analyst was brought in to scrutinize a district budget officials already expected to be up to $7 million in debt — and district leaders learned in January the actual figure was about $9.5 million.

“Just to be blunt, we were appallingly poorly informed about our budget projections, both revenues and expenditures last year,” Deedie Sorensen, president of the Juneau Board of Education, said during a Jan.18, 2024, board meeting.

The analyst reported errors in both the district’s revenue and expenses for that budget year, totaling millions of dollars. But some board members — along with some educators and members of the public — said district leaders also for years failed to factor Juneau’s long-term drop in student population into the spending plans passed by the board.

The school board, facing a deficit of nearly $10 million for the 2023-24 fiscal year as well as the subsequent year, approved a series of cuts as well as a consolidation of schools that was strongly opposed by some parents and educators. The crisis resulted in recall campaigns against Sorensen and then-Vice President Emil Mackey, both of which failed.

Olin found her new job as Wasilla’s finance director relatively quickly — her name appears as the co-author of a March 26, 2024, cover letter to the Wasilla City Council for the city’s annual comprehensive financial report for 2023.

'As time went on, we started noticing more and more'

Crafton, in an interview Tuesday, said he isn’t directly familiar with the circumstances that led to Olin’s hiring by the city — a situation that wouldn’t exist with the ordinance he supported at Monday’s meeting. But he said for a time it didn’t appear to be a problematic decision.

"I would say she wasn't amazing," he said. "She was competent. I would say she was able to do her job."

However, "as time went on, we started noticing more and more," Crafton said. Among examples he cited were people claiming lunches at establishments near City Hall as travel expenses, category codes for other expenses being altered and — more broadly — when it came to issues like presenting budgets, "she wasn't very good at estimating the numbers."

"I would say what I felt like is things weren't passing the sniff test, if you know what I mean there," he said. "Something just didn't seem right. And I don't know exactly what it is. I mean, she obviously resigned so I think it's kind of, unfortunately, a moot point. There's not much we're going to be able to chase down about it. Basically all we're going to do as a city is go ‘Hey, it seems like we have some holes in our process and how do we close those gaps?’"

Contact Mark Sabbatini at editor@juneauindependent.com or (907) 957-2306.