New Bedford Guide Your Guide to New Bedford and South Coast, MA
By David Grogan
With the recent financial crisis in the New Bedford Public Schools that forced the layoffs of dozens of teachers, I’m reminded of George Santayana’s quote, “those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” The history of financial mismanagement in the school department has lasted for well over a generation.
Consider the tenure of Steven Lamarche as the Associate Superintendent for Business who announced a surprise 2.75 million deficit in the fiscal 1996 budget. It is rather shocking that Mr Lamarche was ever in a position of overseeing tens of millions of dollars because he lacked state certification as a school business manager or a graduate business degree. Prior to his employment in the business office in 1985, Mr Lamarche was a 5th grade classroom teacher. Mr Lamarche also revealed that for several years purchase orders were documented after the fact and an outside auditor’s analysis found “virtually no documentation of the number of employees, their salaries or other expenses by the people responsible for the budget”. (Standard Times 3/7/97) The Business Manager hired to replace Lamarche certainly had the background and experience for the job. Peter Roche had been the Business Manager for two other school districts and was a state certified school business manager. The only problem was Roche left after just 7 months on the job. Why would such a qualified professional leave so quickly?
With the sudden departure of Business Manager Lawrence Oliveira in 2011 after 7 years on the job, you will never believe who was hired back as the interim school business manager. Yes, the guy that never got certified and did purchase orders after the fact, Steven Lamarche. With the hiring of Deborah Brown in August 2011, things were looking up as Ms Brown was perhaps the best qualified school business manager of the last 30 years as she was a Certified Public Accountant and had a Masters in Business Administration. Yet, she only lasted 13 months, giving her 2 week notice shortly after the beginning of her second school year. Was she alarmed by the business practices of the department? Why did the 2 most qualified school business managers, Roche and Brown, have such short tenures? An article appearing in the Standard Times, “Looking Under Rocks in the School Department”, (Standard Times 2/22/13) was revealing in what she may have encountered. Would you believe payroll is being done by hand and in pencil! She was also thrown under the proverbial school bus by Interim Superintendent Shea. The paper made no mention of attempting to get Ms Brown’s side of the story. I thought a central tenet of good journalism is to get both sides of a story.
When the Chief Financial Officer of a public company resigns, they are required to make a statement revealing any suspected financial weaknesses. Why does the CFO of a 100 million dollar school budget not get asked any questions? An elected official told me that no one is going to demand an assessment from Ms Brown because they want to “move forward”. This is the equivalent of a builder “moving forward” with construction after his foreman informs him that the foundation is faulty. I can understand the reluctance of administrators taking on this task as their plates are very full yet educational reforms will not be successful amidst financial chaos.
Financial reform goes hand in hand with educational reform. One possible solution to the job burden would be to elicit the help of citizens with accounting backgrounds as well as enlisting the help of some of the accounting and business majors at UMASS Dartmouth. Students would gain real world experience and could share their experiences with high school students.
It is unclear what financial background Chief Financial Officer, Ari Sky, has. You would be hard pressed to find a CFO in the private sector that didn’t have a solid background in accounting and yet the city was unable to confirm his academic background because they didn’t have his transcript in the file. I am still waiting (29 days and counting) for a simple yes or no as to whether the current school business manager, Richard Patrick Murphy, has the dual degrees he lists on his resume from Boston College. The public record request for this information was met with silence and it wasn’t until the state public records division informed the city that they were in violation of the law for ignoring the request that some information was supplied.
There are other examples of weak or missing financial controls that would give anyone some serious reservations about the school’s financial management. Consider the following events. A deposit of several hundred dollars was made into a former employee’s bank account. When the former employee pointed out the mistake, rather than a prompt resolution, weeks later it was still outstanding and the manager in charge of the department had stopped responding to emails. Several hundred dollars deposited into an ex employee’s bank account? How does that happen? In another matter, a school administrator organized several fund raisers over a two year span that raised tens of thousands of dollars. While the administrator may have been within his or her right to decide how to direct the proceeds, is it right that they billed the school district for the expenses? A public record request confirmed that no revenue came through the school districts books only expenses.
Is there fraud occurring in the school department? It’s impossible to tell because not enough questions have been asked. Do conditions exist (weak financial controls) that allow fraud to occur? Absolutely. Consider what happened in New York state when they discovered some massive school frauds. New York had always relied upon private audit firms to perform audits (as in Massachusetts). The state embarked upon an exhaustive study to determine how to improve financial controls so that future frauds could be prevented. New Bedford can learn many valuable lessons from their experience. Why not practice some of the critical thinking and collaborative problem solving that we expect of our students and contact the NY Comptroller’s office? A forensic audit performed by an independent firm is needed. Continuing to pour state and federal money into New Bedford without a forensic audit is like trying to fill a bathtub without knowing if there is a drain plug in place.
The lessons of history that we hold so dear in the education of our students need to be reflected upon by our elected officials and administrators so that we end the financial mismanagement that has plagued our schools. A commitment to excellence and transparency is needed to incorporate best practices. It is a new year filled with hope. Let 2014 be the year that transforms New Bedford’s practices. The citizens deserve nothing less.
Send comments to: ImproveNewBedfordSchools@gmail.com. Mr Grogan is a former science teacher in the New Bedford Public Schools.
