Students Learn How to Sniff Out Financial Crime

Madison area high school students learn how to sniff out financial crime
By PAMELA COTANT For the Wisconsin State Journal | Posted: Sunday, November 15, 2009

Accounting can be more than hovering over a calculator or crunching numbers. That's what some Madison area high school students learned during a recent seminar conducted by the IRS and staged at Madison Area Technical College.

Not only did the 83 students learn about investigating fraud through forensic accounting — which uses accounting, auditing and investigative skills to look at a company’s financial statements — they discovered the importance of taxes and what happens when people try to avoid paying them.

The program, called Project Adrian Jr. because it was started at Adrian College in Adrian, Mich., is a high school forensic investigative simulation workshop.

It challenges students to solve a hypothetical financial crime involving a local business owner who is skimming money from his ice cream parlor. Serving as "honorary agents," the students follow a paper trail, which includes going through garbage allegedly picked out of a Dumpster, to expose the fraud. IRS special agents or retirees serve as coaches.

While the workshop is aimed at forensic accounting, it also is designed to get students thinking about accounting careers in general.

The participating schools included Middleton High School and East, LaFollette, Memorial and West high schools in Madison.

"Accounting (and) financial budgets are the centerpieces of the business they may be working for some day," said Dave Thomas, chairman of Memorial’s business department and a coordinator for Project Adrian Jr. "They start to understand the relevance of (accounting)."

Kyle Sands, a sophomore at East High School, said the accounting workshop opened his eyes to a career possibility and gave more meaning to the numbers in his class work.

"Pay your taxes" is another message that came out of the event, said Lauren Schade, a sophomore at Memorial High School.

Jerry Lehman, accounting and finance instructor at MATC — which now wants to be called Madison College — and another event coordinator along with Madison-based IRS special agent Janet Oakes, said the workshop is another way to foster a relationship with high schools.

The Wisconsin Institute of Certified Public Accountants supported the event through grants and IRS agents came from as far away as the Twin Cities.