THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 11, 1996 TAG: 9602100023
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J4 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 77 lines
The Virginia Beach School Board has presided over one fiasco after another in the past year. Its latest folly was perpetrated in the wee small hours of Wednesday morning, suggesting the board isn't even competent to schedule and conduct a meeting.
For reasons that defy rational comprehension, the board announced after midnight that it had reinstated suspended chief financial officer Mordecai Smith. That he will serve on probation in a lesser capacity is not consoling. Just days before a large deficit was discovered - from which the schools are still struggling to extricate themselves - Smith assured the board the year would end with a surplus.
Fingers have been pointed in many directions, a lot at former superintendent Sid Faucette. A grand jury is looking into the matter. A new superintendent will take over soon. It would have made far more sense to await the grand jury's findings and arrival of the superintendent before acting on the Smith matter one way or another.
Especially since the decision was by a 7-4 vote. It was so divisive that one board member - Susan Creamer - has resigned in protest and other members are outraged. Given the controversial nature of the decision, the prudent course would have been to defer action in the absence of a strong majority or - ideally - a unanimous vote.
By acting before the grand jury has announced its findings, the board invites yet another black eye. The board also appears to have undercut the ability of the new superintendent to quickly resume the schools' lingering financial difficulties and assemble his own team.
The board was notoriously slow about discovering the deficit in the first place, then conducted a clumsy search for a successor to the departed Faucette that failed to inspire confidence in the process if not the ultimate choice.
Now the board has proposed painful cuts to achieve a balanced budget. The cuts will penalize innocent bystanders - including teachers, special-education students and athletes - rather than those responsible for the fiscal mismanagement: administrators and the School Board.
It's true that the school budget is tight, so even minor shortfalls require hard-to-find cuts. Furthermore, state and federal dollars that once were taken for granted are now increasingly problematical. But the fact that a job is hard doesn't excuse doing it badly.
In fact, the tight fiscal situation argues for extremely conservative budgeting, not skating close to the edge. Sad to say, the board's credibility in matters of financial management is now so tainted that even if more funding really is needed for the good of the schools, no one will take the board's word for it.
At minimum, the board should schedule and conduct meetings at a time when the public can attend and exercise a modicum of oversight. Making major decisions after midnight is absurd.
City Council must demand that the merger of accounting operations go forward at once and the School Board must cooperate. Council must also approve future budget requests by the School Board only after searching interrogation of the responsible parties.
Unfortunately, by law City Council is not granted line-by-line authority over the budget. The School Board remains in charge, if not - in this case - in control.
Virginia Beach voted for an elected School Board, and now it has a portion of one. Not all of the system's problems can be traced to the change from an appointed to an elected board, but all of the problems are going to have to be solved by elected members. That puts the onus squarely on the voters.
In the coming May election, the remaining seats now held by council appointees will be filled by elected members. Virginia Beach voters must approach the election with utmost seriousness, choose members with care and then hold them accountable. Otherwise, there's nothing to stop the fiascos from continuing.
And ultimately, it's not teachers, administrators or even the taxpayers who are going to suffer the worst consequences. The students, whose schools are being so woefully mismanaged, will pay the price. by CNB