THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, November 12, 1995 TAG: 9511110160
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
SOURCE: BETH BARBER
LENGTH: Medium: 65 lines
Here's Sid Faucette, former school superintendent, quoted in the Gwinnett (Ga.) Daily Post on Nov. 9 in response to Commonwealth's Attorney Bob Humphreys' call Nov. 8 for a special grand jury investigation into the school system's finances, beginning with the $12.1 million deficit for '94-'95:
If I can be part of the solution, and people are really serious about a solution, I'm willing to talk about it. I'm not on a witch hunt. I've been damaged and taken it with grace. I have said from the beginning I would be more than happy to return.
Great. No problem. Faucette is ``more than happy'' to help.
Anything that is on the table, I have not been a part of. They would prefer to find a scapegoat three states away. I'm not sure a lot of people would be enamored of my coming back and discussing it in a public venue. Now, whatever damage that is going to be done has been done to me, so why would I go back and damage other people?
Uh-oh, problem-o. Most of what's ``on the table'' regards the whopping deficit incurred from July '94 through June '95. Faucette resigned May 15, 1995, effective July 3. And the special grand jury can put on the table anything it pleases; say, the schools' '93-'94 or '92-'93 budgets, both drawn on Faucette's watch.
``Scapegoat''? Some few things do flow uphill, including a school superintendent's share of responsibility for his district's finances. The financial plan presented to the School Board each year is not the Budget Development Director's Operating Budget, or the Chief Financial Officer's Operating Budget, or the Internal Auditor's Operating Budget.
No, this document, the embodiment of the integrity, credibility and reliability of school finance, is called the Superintendent's Operating Budget. The superintendent should know enough finance to know when it's gone awry and to raise the roof to get it right.
``Damage other people''? Sparing people ``whatever damage'' is due them is not a grand jury's job. Assessing damage and assigning responsibility for it, the better to prevent repetition, are an investigative grand jury's duties . .
I'm willing to take the heat and be the scapegoat. But it appears to me they have had some constructive dialogue and arrived at some acceptable solutions. Now they ought to go about the business of teaching children.
Investigative grand juries, too, go about the business of teaching children: that taxpayers are due a straightforward accounting for their education dollars.
As letter writers who favor elec-to-ral change point out on Page 7 today, ``ward'' has a negative connotation. But only because it has earned it. And if having wards is OK, then saying ``wards'' is OK.
An updated sample of proposed ways to ask voters about electoral change next May appears below. Yes, they're phrased to skewer wards. But the pro-ward-ers' word-ing skews voters their way. And it could screw up the system royally: Unlike the question they got on the May 1994 ballot (no gem of clarity itself), this one leaves out at-large council seats altogether.
Sewer backups aren't the issue either. All residents have a council member now who lives in their borough and is particularly attentive to their problems. They won't gain that from a ward system. In fact, they'll lose those 10 additional council members now attentive and accountable to them. by CNB