Since Varnum decided that Karen Clark, rep from Eddington shouldn't serve as Vice Chair for the coming year and then back-set the stage for Therese Anderson, rep from Eddington, to take Karen's place, it will be interesting to see who (other than Karen) works to keep Varnum on track in terms of Maine education law and/or SAD63 Board policies (there are over 500 policies). Fortunately Kevin Mills, new rep from Holden, appears to have taken his elected responsibilities seriously. I wonder how many reps - other than Kevin and Karen - have read them.
The most recent sidestepping of policies which have concerned me relate to (1) the requirement of all District employee contracts to be reviewed and approved by the Board (not by any individual of the Board independently acting in the name of the Board but the entire Board as a voting group - and let us remember who can and cannot vote) and (2) the regular production and public distribution of District Financial Reports and Audits.
It appears the SAD63 Board never knew the previous Superintendent changed certain employees' contracts and inserted clauses authorizing bonuses in amounts up to $5,000 annually (paid from our taxpayer monies). If Karen Clark had not discovered these clauses during research relating to the current ongoing lawsuit initiated by the terminated, previous Superintendent, this matter would not have been discovered or brought to light. So, my questions are:
- How did this change (in the impacted contracts) go through without Board knowledge?
- Who authorized these contract changes?
- How were the payments approved? Apparently there is one member of the School Board who needs to co-sign checks with the District Business Manager - and the Business Manager was one of the recipients of these bonus checks. Were these bonus checks just automatically cut by the outside agency contracted to process payroll? If so, who signed the authorization for the outside agency to process the bonus checks? Someone on the School Board? Remember - this is taxpayer money not private sector money. If the Chairperson approved the contract changes without the entire Board's approval, it was outside the Chair's authority.
- Since none of the contracts initiated for the 2008-09 academic year were brought to the School Board for review and approval, they were, in fact, illegal for the entire year. Considering the costs for school administration was more than $373, 000 in 2008 and more than $400,000 for school administration that same year, it doesn't take much imagination to think what the audit for 2009 will show. But none of those contracts were reviewed or approved by the Board (even though every one was paid throughout the fiscal year). Fortunately, this error in contract procedure was caught (by Karen - not by the Chairman who is supposed to be "in charge") and the 2009-2010 contracts being put in place prior to the Board break for July were properly processed by the Board.
Considering how many years Varnum has been the Board's Chair, one has to wonder how many other rules and procedures have been overlooked? And where have the other Board members been in monitoring these procedures? Back to Board members actually reading those policies and procedures and fulfilling their duties and responsibilities to the taxpayers...
The second area of concern I mentioned above has to do with the regular and timely production of monthly Financial Reports and the 2008-2009 District Audit.
Last year there were months that went by when the Board's Budget and Finance Committee (BFC) didn't receive a monthly Financial Report - copies of which should be automatically be distributed to the town managers of Eddington, Clifton and Holden, as well as any resident/taxpayer in those communities particularly attendants at the BFC meetings. It is the responsibility (fiscal and professional) of the District's Business Manager to close the District's financial books at the end of each month. [NOTE: This is standard professional business practice.] Therefore, there is no reason why the BFC doesn't have the Financial Report in time for its monthly meeting every month and the entire School Board by its month end meeting. Accordingly, since the funding for the District is being paid by the three towns, the town managers should have those reports for distribution for their respective Selectmen meetings.
As for that audit - there is no excuse for an annual audit not be completed and distributed by January 15 instead of July when the District's fiscal year closes June 30. If the District's Business Manager is closing the District's financial books at the end of each month, as is the standard for any professional (not to mention one being paid over $70,000 for a District as small as SAD63), the District's work papers and year end reports should be completed by no later than August 31 of the year which would allow any contracted auditing firm to begin the audit by September 1. Such an audit should take no longer than 4 months. That way we taxpayers (and all three towns' Board of Selectmen) could review the previous year's audit before we were having to review any proposed budget in May for an upcoming year without seeing how the previous year's had been handled - instead of being as much as two years or more out of date with real data.
There will be more on this subject in upcoming blogs because - until the District's fiscal/business processing is better handled, there is no reason to believe anyone should consider consolidating with SAD63 or that the taxpayers in our three towns should believe anything we're being told by this District's current administration.
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