The five-member TUSD Governing Board Audit Committee will be selected and appointed Tuesday night.

Eleven candidates have applied for a position on the volunteer board, which was created in light of accounting errors in excess of $700,000 within the Tucson Unified School District.

The candidates include an attorney, an economics professor, accountants, business managers and parents.

"We are thrilled with the quality of applicants that stepped forward to serve the students and the community," said Governing Board member Alex Rodriguez, who was charged with setting the parameters to create the new committee.

The applicants are:

● Clifford Altfeld, an attorney with Altfeld Battaile & Goldman, P.C.

● Clay Connor, principal of Academy of Tucson Inc. and a former TUSD teacher.

● Bernie Wiegandt, a certified public accountant.

● Daniel Webster, a test scorer for Pearson NCS.

● Clare Strom, business manager for Pima Community College's Northwest campus.

● Mark Stegeman, an associate professor of economics at the University of Arizona.

● Loretta Peto, a certified public accountant and TUSD Blue Ribbon Committee member.

● Sandra Parker, a retired business consultant and former city councilwoman in Longmont, Colo.

● Lea Marquez, owner of TucsonBizForSale.com and executive director of Greater Tucson Leadership.

● Sonia Gissart, senior administrative secretary for TUSD's African-American Studies Department

● Scotty Dean, director of forecasting and analysis for Tucson Medical Center Health Care.

TUSD's Governing Board is scheduled to discuss the appointments in executive session Tuesday afternoon. Later that evening, the board will appoint those selected for the committee.

The board voted unanimously to create the committee less than two months ago.

In July 2006, TUSD's Financial Services Department discovered an inconsistency in the health-insurance account compared with previous years. Internal memos, obtained by the Arizona Daily Star, stated that between $687,000 and $777,000 in health-care coverage was provided free to 4,500 to 4,800 employees three years ago.

It was later revealed that the accounting section of the Human Resources Department knew about the error as early as 2005.

In the 2004-05 school year, TUSD switched insurance providers from PacifiCare to United Healthcare. The change included going from a 12-month benefit year to a 15-month benefit year, extending paycheck deductions from 20 to 22.

During the summer, TUSD sent out letters to employees informing them that the money would be collected. Pat Beatty, director of Financial Services, and Sue Wybraniec, head of Human Resources, were suspended without pay for five days for the error. Benefits Manager Mona Gibson received a formal letter of reprimand.

Along with an audit board that would report to the Governing Board, Superintendent Roger Pfeuffer also has considered consulting an outside accounting firm to perform an organizational audit of TUSD.

● Contact reporter George B. Sánchez at 573-4195 or at gsanchez@azstarnet.com.