THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, December 10, 1995 TAG: 9512080193
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 07 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Bill Reed
LENGTH: Medium: 70 lines
What a relief it is to learn that former School Supt. Sidney L. Faucette was not responsible for the $12.1 million school budget deficit last year!
Made my day. I know it did yours. And now that we know, we can sleep in peace.
At the urging of his new employer (the Gwinnett County, Ga., School Board), Faucette unburdened himself of negative vibes about his experience here as chief executive officer of the public school system.
Take the time to clear yourself; stand up to critics, he was advised.
And so, in a report to the board last month, he forthrightly dumps the blame squarely where it belongs - on everybody else.
Included for special mention on the blame brigade are his old School Board buddies, his old school administrative staff and Virginia Beach municipal officials.
And don't forget those rascally, penny-pinching, near-sighted Beach City Councilpersons who dole out money for school and city operations like it was a cure for premature baldness.
In fact, Sid says he was ``out of the loop'' during the budget preparations here in Virginia Beach - bypassed, an innocent bystander.
Despite being the chief honcho, he was trapped in a sound-and-light-proof cocoon, operating in a vacuum.
He was a virtual prisoner in his cell-like executive office - a Carthusian monk left to contemplate celestial emanations in solitude, while all sorts of sinister things were going on around him.
For instance:
Important info about state and federal funding and other financial data was kept from him at crucial times - like most of the time.
The city finance staff and the city manager kept fiddling around with those school revenue estimates, causing them to come up short while school spending came up long.
The city's computerized finance system was ``not school-funding-friendly.''
In other words, the hand on the mouse running the computerized finance spreadsheets for city schools was guided by evil spirits.
Space aliens had invaded City Hall and seized control of the main frame handling all the municipal bean-counting chores.
The debit, the credit and the expenditure columns were slapped together like strands of spaghetti. Figures didn't add up. Neither did later explanations.
The minds of local School Board and City Council members had been bombarded by radioactive particles zapped to earth by an intergalactic ray gun.
As a result they were deluded into thinking that a school budget deficit actually exists.
The devil did it.
Thankfully, a special 10-member special grand jury has been appointed to clear up the mystery and, it is hoped, it will find a solution that is of an earthly origin.
Armed with subpoena power, grand jury members should be able to summon witnesses and records to sort truth from fiction.
The panel had its first meeting last Monday and decided to meet twice a week for possibly the next six months before ending its inquiry.
What jury members may find eventually can only be left to conjecture.
One intangible result already has surfaced and that is the realization that a new full-time superintendent - whoever it is - should lead with dignity and integrity and take the flak for foul-ups.
In other words, be a stand-up guy. by CNB