State officials have identified hundreds of thousands of dollars of sloppy bookkeeping in the Marshalltown Community School District.

Allison Meyer was a payroll specialist for Marshalltown schools until she was placed on administrative leave on June 13th of this year. She resigned the next day. A special investigation by the state auditor’s office shows the district racked up more than $616,000 in penalties and interest. Auditors say it’s because Meyer missed monthly and quarterly filing deadlines with the IRS. In addition, auditors figure Meyer overpaid current and former employees by about $26,000 by improperly calculating pay, overtime and insurance benefits.

Andrew Potter, a spokesman for Marshalltown schools, said the audit confirms what the district had already discovered and updated procedures are already in place.

“We’ve implemented internal control procedures to best ensure payroll is processed in an accurate and timely manner as we move forward,” he said, “and so this report kind of just reaffirms what we already had in our investigation.”

The $617,000 IRS fine has been paid by the district.

“We have filed an appeal with the IRS and we’re working with our attorney to try to see if we can recover those penalties that were paid by the district,” Potter said.

According to the state auditor’s report, the district’s initial appeal to the IRS was denied.

(Additional reporting by Ken Huge, KFJB, Marshalltown)