THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, May 7, 1995 TAG: 9505060143
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
SOURCE: Beth Barber
LENGTH: Medium: 67 lines
Some snippets between the sniping at last week's School Board meeting offered intriguing allusions and allegations. No board member followed them up, at least not in open session. But I at least found them intriguing. You may, too.
Board member Van Spiva suspended his special interests - black students and custodians - to note that ``we've been doing some deficit spending''; that is, paying '93-'94 bills with '94-'95 funds. That's a serious allegation: Deficit spending by school systems is prohibited by state statute. If Dr. Spiva has evidence suggesting such potential malfeasance, he should produce it for explanation or other action.
Dr. Spiva asked Dr. Faucette if any ``deficit spending'' is going on with '94-'95 expenses shifted to '95-'96 funds. The quick answer was no. Still, school memos suggest that current efforts to avoid shortfalls are legion: Fuel now measured daily and ordered only ``on an as-needed basis,'' for example. And payments for ``staff development'' canceled ``due to recent budget constraints.'' And the directive to cancel ``all back-orders on purchase orders'' that the schools' chief financial officer issued last month and the superintendent rescinded days later and repudiated last Tuesday night. The CFO erred, the superintendent said - but in misreading the financial signals or in upsetting the su-per-in-tend-ent?
Expert financial help is apparently hard to find for this school system. The previous CFO, though hand-picked, proved unsatisfactory in less than a year. The internal auditor just quit abruptly. In the 1994 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, the external auditors suggested that some transfers of school funds last year indicate a need to ``closely monitor actual revenues and expenditures (including transfers) against budgets'' the better to formulate, approve and implement alternatives ``to maintain a balanced budget.''
That report on FY94, incidentally, is one Dr. Spiva was trying to say he should have gotten but hasn't and Dr. Faucette said he didn't have yet either. The superintendent erred. The superintendent replied to that suggestion from those auditors on March 31.
Dr. Spiva also referred to the ``loss of Celebration Station,'' a one-time flea market which the school system has spent millions leasing and renovating, and which Superintendent Faucette wants the system to buy.
But his rationale for renting it in the first place several years ago is in dispute. The building still stands half-empty, even as other school programs operate out of trailers. It has been bruited about at various times as the future home of gifted programs, administrative functions and-or the Literacy Center, which is housed there for the nonce.
The nonce may be short. The school's proposal for purchase did not persuade city staff and seems not to have persuaded City Council. Celebration Station's future now rests with a School Board and school administration that haven't budgeted rent for this building and are looking for cuts in schools' operating budget.
Dr. Faucette at one recent point allowed as how he could back the truck up and the schools out of Celebration Station pronto.
Ryder's number is 855-9718.
Board member Robert Hall had a suggestion for handling the city's demand for school-budget cuts: A previous superintendent, he said, dealt with it by reducing highly visible programs so people would complain.
A novel tactic it isn't. And what a revealing ruse it is. by CNB