Monique Acevedo was not qualified to be Monroe County's adult education coordinator, exposing the district to the potential of having to repay any state or federal money she spent, the School Board attorney said.

Not only were state requirements for the position omitted from the district's job description, but Schools Superintendent Randy Acevedo, her husband, failed to adhere to three requirements in the hiring process, attorney Richard Collins said. Acevedo did not advertise the job, did not seek immediate School Board approval to promote his wife, and did not seek a state waiver for hiring an unqualified candidate, Collins said.

"State law says he has to bring them to us for approval," School Board Chairman Andy Griffiths said of job hires and promotions.

Monique Acevedo did not have a professional adult education administration certificate, as required by the Florida Department of Education (DOE), much less a master's degree or higher level certificate required of assistants, which she was to John Andola before she replaced her retiring predecessor in 2005, Collins said.

The district's job description required only a valid driver's license and high school diploma or General Equivalency Degree. The superintendent recommended the School Board approve the job description in April 2008, Collins said, adding he could find no written job description prior to that.

"I did not rewrite the job description," the superintendent said Wednesday. "We contracted with Management Advisory Group (MAG) to rewrite all job descriptions and that is what they came up with. They did not indicate that anything additional was required."

MAG did not return calls seeking comment on whether it rewrote the job description. However, the Virginia-based consulting firm's 2007 report said it was hired to "conduct a compensation and classification study." The report does not include written job descriptions, only discusses whether salaries and supplemental pay were commensurate with job duties and required education levels.

Acevedo appointed his wife to the position more than a year before telling the board, Collins said. He appointed her when Andola retired, on June 30, 2005, and told the board on June 30, 2006. The board approved her appointment, apparently not knowing about the state requirements.

It is unclear whether Andola had a written job description and/or met the state requirements for the job, which the district changed after he left, splitting the duties between Acevedo and Mark Hooper, giving them different titles.

"Mistakenly, I had previously accepted that the superintendent had been abiding by DOE rules and regulations," board member John Dick said. "But as we keep learning, he keeps making up his own rules. Now we learn he put an untrained, unqualified person in a position of administrative leadership."

Collins said that could open the district to financial losses, at best.

"There may be some potential ramifications to having an unqualified person as the coordinator of adult education," Collins wrote in a May 7 memo to the superintendent and board members. "We may find that both state and federal funds have been expended to pay for the salary, benefits and travel of Mrs. Acevedo ..."

Collins said a School Board member asked him to investigate the circumstances surrounding Monique Acevedo's rise from adult education office manager to coordinator. Dick said he was the one who requested the look at Acevedo's job history.

Acevedo's qualifications as office manager also are in question, as they are not documented.

"I could not find any evidence that Mrs. Acevedo had received an associate's degree," Collins wrote, "although I am informed that at one point she had shown some documents to the director of human resources as proof of her possession of the required degree, but those documents were never presented for placement in her personnel file."

Acevedo wrote on her job application that she graduated from East Rutherford High School and attended Gardner Webb College from August 1986 to May 1987, Human Resources Director Cheryl Allen said. "I do not have transcripts in her file to verify this information," Allen said.

The district first hired Acevedo as an office aide in 1994 and promoted her to clerk typist in 1995, when her husband was director of Information Services. He promoted her eight months after he was elected superintendent.

Monique Acevedo resigned March 3 after it was discovered she used her school district credit card on alleged personal purchases. Since then, she's been charged with stealing more than $180,000 in cash-only fees assessed by the cosmetology program at Key West High School.

Questions also have arisen about how she spent a $250,000 Even Start federal grant; whether she used her school district credit card on expenses for her husband's re-election campaign; and whether she kept fundraising money as the ninth-grade class sponsor.

Acevedo faces two 30-year terms in state prison if convicted, according to charging documents from the State Attorney's Office. She is free on personal recognizance.

Board member Steve Pribramsky, who along with Dick has been critical of the superintendent, wants the public to see Collins' report.

"I was shocked and disappointed when I read this report," Pribramsky said. "The document needs to be linked [to the school district Web site] as soon as possible so that every taxpayer and parent can read Mr. Collins' findings."

jguerra@keysnews.com