Some advisers, students and officials agreed that the thousands of dollars allegedly embezzled from the Michigan Interscholastic Press Association haven't affected any programs, including the fall conference held at the Lansing Center on Monday.

"It's upsetting, but it hasn't affected the program that I can see," said Gayle Martin, adviser for The Source, the student newspaper at Stoney Creek High School.

Raye Grill, a former MSU employee, is charged with taking more than $20,000 from MIPA and between $1,000 and $20,000 from the MSU School of Journalism.

Michigan Interscholastic Press Association, or MIPA, President Brian Wilson said the organization has been able to meet its budget every year.

"When we were looking at the budget, we were essentially setting the budget based on money we had in the account," Wilson said. "We never got in a position where we never had as much money as before.

"If we would've, we might have looked at things a little more closely than we did."

Grill allegedly took the money directly from MIPA, Wilson said.

The money MIPA uses to pay some of its charges comes from an account within the MSU School of Journalism, which MIPA is required to reimburse, he said.

Grill allegedly covered the theft from MIPA by not reimbursing the journalism accounts, Wilson said.

Although Wilson said he is hoping to receive back all of the money taken from MIPA, he said a lot of that money truly belongs to the School of Journalism.

"We may be getting a portion of that back, but the money coming back has to go to wherever it was taken from in the first place," he said.

During the past seven years - when the money was allegedly taken - the operating budget and the ability for the organization to put on programs hasn't changed and probably won't, Wilson said.

Because the programs offered to high school and middle school students haven't changed, Wilson said he didn't see a reason to tell his students about the situation.

"Most students' contact with MIPA consists of the spring and fall conferences and the summer workshops," Wilson said. "Essentially, those things have been unchanged throughout the course of this."

Martin said she didn't tell her staff because when she found out in June, school had ended and many of the returning students were new.

"This year, I have a relatively new staff and they're not really aware of MIPA," Martin said.

However, many students who heard about the embezzlement charge for the first time from The State News on Monday said they would have liked to have known earlier.

"It's important because if we're coming to (the MIPA conference), we should know what's going on," said Brooke Bergstrom, a sophomore at Bath High School.

The newspaper staff at Dexter High School was told about the situation, but some students said they wanted to know more.

"He was actually really vague about it," Brandon Mayotte, a senior at Dexter, said about his adviser. "I'm sure he was a lot more affected than we are."

Mayotte said the news still came as a shock.

"I was surprised because it's MIPA - it's a student thing," Mayotte said. "I didn't think anyone would steal money from it."