THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, October 19, 1995 TAG: 9510190022
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 70 lines
The financial news from Virginia Beach public schools just got worse: Tuesday, Interim Superintendent Jim Pughsley announced that the system is already $6.6 million in deficit for school year '95-'96.
A school deficit's nothing new: The system was by its own count at least $7.8 million in deficit for school year '94-'95. An audit now under way by city staff and KMPG Peat Marwick is soon to report the '94-'95 numbers more precisely.
The response from various members of the board Tuesday night showed, however, that the board (and the public) would benefit from a fast and full workshop on municipal and school finance. Lesson One: that accounting isn't quite the same as ac-count-abil-i-ty.
The current audit of school year 1994-95 can and will reconstruct the accounting: what happened regarding which budget items, when and how much.
But School Board members who, rightly, demand to know the who and the why for several years back are also wrongly demanding those answers from this audit.
The responsibility for determining accountability from the paper trail laid by the auditors lies with the School Board and school administration. Meantime, school officials could be - but aren't - doing some deep record-, memory- and soul-searching of their own.
An example: School Board member Tim Jackson asked that this question be answered in the current audit:
(a) ``Was there an official internal audit report regarding the '94-95 budget?''
(b) ``If so, why weren't audit reports shared with the School Board?''
(c) ``Who made this decision?''
(d) ``When was the internal audit conducted?''
Their own new internal auditor can, and on Tuesday did, answer:
(a) Yes.
(b) Ask the School Board Audit Committee, the then-superintendent and the-then chief finance officer.
(c) See (b).
(d) Begun in December 1994, the internal audit was not completed because the budget director did not provide the required audit responses.
Now there's a question the board should be following up: Why did the budget director not provide the requisite answers? Board members know who the Audit Committee were: Chairman June Kernutt, Member Susan Creamer and then-Superintendent Faucette. The CFO at the time was Mordecai Smith, now on administrative leave. These officials, among others, were on the scene. The board knows where to find them to answer questions not answered, or answerable, by anyone else.
Board members who lately wonder aloud whether the city is interested only in protecting its bond rating, not helping schools, could wait until the audit comes out in early November and see. If they're right, they could revive the request for a thorough, and thoroughly independent, audit. Dr. Pughsley, who deserves applause for turning out the most straightforward, comprehensible budget document in years, asked for such an audit weeks ago. That's well within the purview of the board, well within its stated purpose.
As for its pocketbook, just 3 1/2 months into the new fiscal year the School Board has had to more than double its own budget for legal services, not least because of board members' possible liability in this school-finance fiasco. What the board wants to know, it seems to find funds to find out.
The whos and whys the public wants to know but doesn't find out from the schoolsystem, it may have to get from a special grand jury. by CNB