WENDELL — The treasurer of the newly-formed PTSA at East Wake’s School of Engineering Sciences resigned Friday after keeping more than $200 in PTSA dues for 10 months without depositing them.

Former School of Engineering PTSA treasurer Joe Sparacia returned the money to principal Sebastian Shipp a day after a call from the Eastern Wake News asking why he hadn’t deposited the money.

“I’m surprised,” Ted Smith a PTSA board member, said on Monday. Smith, who said he tried with PTSA president Tandra Strickland to get Sparacia to deposit the money or return it for about 10 months, now has the money in his possession.

Smith said the chapter, which is still being formed, could not organize further because of the missing money.

He said Sparacia kept the money and hadn’t deposited it after repeated phone calls asking him to. Smith said he reported the matter to Shipp. Shipp called to set up a time to receive the money.

“I was supposed to meet him and I forgot,” he said. “I went out of town, and I forgot about it. It’s not something that’s weighing on my mind.”

He said the fact that he didn’t deposit the money is because he accidentally registered the PTSA’s federal identification number as the School of Integrated Technology. His son attended that school at East Wake before transferring to the School of Engineering, he said. “It’s my own silliness here,” he said.

Smith said he and Strickland had called Sparacia repeatedly and that he didn’t return messages left on his answering machine. Smith said he reached him in late April and escorted him to an area bank to deposit the money.

“We couldn’t open the account because of errors or discrepancies and that’s the last we’ve seen of him,” Strickland said last week.

After the trip to the bank, Smith said Sparacia then didn’t respond to additional calls or a certified letter. The matter was reported to the Wendell police and the Wake County Sheriff’s Department. Smith said he and Strickland were told it was a matter for small claims court.

Sparacia said he never received a certified letter.

Sparacia said he never deposited the money because he needed another member of the PTSA to be present to do so. He said he tried unsuccessfully to contact the president of the PTSA at the School of Integrated Technology so they could “exchange ID numbers.”

He said he never intended to withhold the $160 in cash and $100 in checks that he had.

“I have to assume responsibility with this. It’s my fault,” he said. “I feel like a thief in the night here.”