Council: School audit draft an 'insult' to the taxpayers

PAWTUCKET -- A staggering preliminary school performance audit, one revealing as much as $10 million or more in annual overspending, should make every city taxpayer angry, City Council members are saying this week.

They're the same city leaders who for the past several budget cycles have pushed for an audit of the school budget books but instead came to funding agreements to avoid costly Caruolo lawsuit proceedings.

Now that the Caruolo process has finally commenced, some council members are telling The Breeze, their concerns over school spending now appear to be validated.

"It's crazy," said Town Council member Albert Vitali Jr. "What I'm seeing is a lot of waste that we on the council have suspected for a long time."

Even if the final results of a performance audit differ from the unvarnished preliminary recommendations, said Vitali, his opinion won't change. School leaders have failed in their duty to the taxpayer, as well as the students of Pawtucket, he says.

"There's going to be a minimum of $6 million in overspending," he predicted.

Last year a funding agreement between the City Council and the School Department led to one of the largest tax increases ever for city taxpayers.

The Breeze reported in its Feb. 24 edition that the preliminary version of a long awaited school performance audit report showed that school administrators have likely been overspending taxpayer dollars by millions of dollars every year.

The report recommended that two schools, Potter-Burns Elementary and Slater Middle School, should be closed and as many as 100 or more paid positions eliminated within the district.

Several council members have indicated their support for closing down schools if it is found to be in the best interest of education in the city. If enrollment continues on the downward trend that it has been on, they say, it will be hard to argue with the $4 million in estimated savings recommended by the auditor.

The auditing company also says Pawtucket should drastically crop overtime expenditures, cut teacher stipends, trim "principal responsibility accounts" and health care costs, and increase class sizes.

The school performance audit was ordered late last year when Pawtucket school leaders sued the city for more money as allowed under the state's Caruolo Act, an option offered by law when school leaders believe the local education budget is not being sufficiently funded.

School leaders are claiming their original $102 million 2009-2010 budget, now standing at $94.2 million, falls short by more than $4 million.

A Caruolo lawsuit was filed by the School Department last November. The suit states that the School Department needs an additional $4.03 million to adequately operate.

"The Pawtucket School Committee still lacks the ability to operate the schools for the 2009-2010 school year in accordance with law, regulation, and contract, while maintaining a balanced budget within the appropriation made to it for fiscal year 2009-2010 as required by law," states the lawsuit.

City Council President Henry Kinch, who indicated he's only been briefed orally on the audit findings by Mayor James Doyle's administration, said the findings should bother every Pawtucket resident if the final draft is anything like the first.

"If what I'm told is the case, it's extremely, extremely troubling. When I first heard about it I was angry," said Kinch. "It borders on an insult to the people of Pawtucket and it's terrible."

Kinch said he will wait for school leaders to defend the initial findings before making a final judgment.

Council member Lorenzo Tetreault, previously a teacher in the Pawtucket district for more than 30 years, agreed that everyone should step back to see what the final figures are before coming to conclusions.

"At first blush, to see that $10.4 million figure is a real eye-opener," he said. "It was so out of the realm of reality that it was almost unbelievable."

If the overspending numbers are anything like the $10.4 million figure, said Tetreault - let's say even half of that figure - "taxpayers should be outraged."

"It's simply not acceptable," he said. "Time and again the council and the mayor have asked them to find ways to cut their budget and they've refused."

Council member David Moran, who for years has stated his desire to take the School Department to the limit with a Caruolo suit and performance audit, said Monday that school officials now appear to have been "crying wolf for the last several years."

"It upsets me in the sense that we bailed them out the last couple of years," said Moran. "I wasn't big on funding them anyway."

Moran was asked if the council should bear some responsibility for not forcing the hand of school officials earlier by allowing a Caruolo action and performance audit to go forward previously.

"It's a tough call either way," he said. "If you call their bluff, you're taking the chance that taxpayers could be hurt even more."

Moran was referring to the hundreds of thousands of dollars it costs taxpayers when a Caruolo lawsuit proceeds.

Councilor James Chadwick, who when he first learned of the recommendations from Cotton and Co. expressed his belief that years of concern had been vindicated, is now saying he'll wait until school leaders have responded and the final audit results are released before he comments again.

"I'm thankful that it was finally done and I can't wait to see the final results," he said.

Councilors Thomas Hodge, Jean Philippe Barros, and John Barry III could not be reached for comment.

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Marcia Green, Editor-in-Chief, The Breeze newspapers

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