THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, September 17, 1995 TAG: 9509160140
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
SOURCE: Beth Barber
LENGTH: Medium: 56 lines
The internal auditor who authored the report published on these pages today resigned on a Friday in April 1995 and was gone the following Tuesday. Kevin Jones hasn't been heard from since. Yet only now is Jones - not the schools' first or only Jeremiah but among the sharpest - being heard.
In January 1995, Jones transmitted this report as a draft to Mordecai Smith, then interim chief financial officer and director of budget development, now chief financial officer. That draft, Jones writes, was approved in March by the Audit Committee of the School Board, which included then-Superintendent Sid Faucette.
This report has to be as summary a judgment of the school administration's appalling stewardship of taxpayers' money as any yet to surface - and the reports, memos, recollections and rumors surfacing now are legion. Read this report, and cringe.
How can numbers in a school system's formal budget document not add up? How can budgeters not check actual expenditures during one school year before itemizing expenditures for the next? How can requisitions be proc-essed without monitoring the amounts in accounts? Ordinary people sense this, much less people who hire out as a financial whiz.
How can any school administrator simply ignore a School Board directive to get approval before transferring more than $10,000 from an account that has funds to an account that lacks them? How can so much money lie in accounts that apparently don't need it?
How can any school superintendent ignore the implications in the conclusion of a subsequent (Feb. 1) memo from his internal auditor concerning transfers presented by the CFO and aapproved by the board (Jan. 17) to cover salaries and benefits:
``In summary, $6,028,064 in shortfalls have been identified . . . for which transfers have not been made or as a result of unresolved errors in transfers proposed to and approved by the School Board. Also, similar transfers still need to be made to cover projected deficits for many non-salary expenditure line items.''
How can school administrators and board members know - yet not a public peep, much less a loud, shrill whistle blow?
How poorly school funds were projected . . . budgeted (added . . . subtracted) is phenomenal. Every budget needs wiggle room, but every Polynesian within sight of Maui could have hulaed through this one - until, like the school system, she inevitably lost her skirt.
The word now is that City Council, School Board, local and state prosecutors are awaiting the city-requested audit. Fact is, official fingers must point carefully. But the public has noticed that while its own reaction is outrage, Council's looks more like relief, most on the board pull the perfect blank face and, of all the folks involved, the author of this report was among the first to go. by CNB