THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, February 14, 1996 TAG: 9602140368
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ALETA PAYNE, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Medium: 84 lines
Seven School Board members who voted to reinstate the school district's budget director have been called to testify before the special grand jury investigating the division's finances - six of them for the second time.
The seven voted to reinstate Mordecai L. Smith on a probationary basis last week. They are Elsie M. Barnes, Donald F. Bennis, D. Linn Felt, Robert W. Hall, Tim Jackson, Ulysses Van Spiva and Ferdinand V. Tolentino. Only Bennis had not appeared before the panel previously.
The four members who voted against Smith's reinstatement, Susan L. Creamer, June T. Kernutt, Karen O. O'Brien and Joseph D. Taylor, were not called. Creamer resigned from the board last week because of the reinstatement.
Commonwealth's AttorneyRobert J. Humphreys, who requested that the grand jury be empaneled and serves as its legal adviser, was out of town Tuesday and could not be reached for comment.
``It's my understanding we're being called back to explain why we voted to reinstate Mr. Smith,'' Barnes said. She declined to comment further.
Smith had been on paid administrative leave since September. He was to have returned to work Monday but took a week's leave because of an illness in his family, his attorney said.
He had served as chief financial officer and director of budget development in the year leading up to the discovery of the worst financial disaster in the school district's history, a $12.1 million shortfall at the end of the 1994-95 fiscal year. He also oversaw the accounting duties in the absence of a director of accounting.
Smith has maintained throughout the investigation that he did nothing wrong and that he acted on the direction of then-Superintendent Sidney L. Faucette.
From his new job in Georgia, Faucette has said that he relied on information from his financial staff, that he was cut out of the financial loop by the School Board's budget committee, and that his efforts to manage the district's money were hampered by city officials and their finance systems.
Smith and Faucette have already testified before the jury.
Meanwhile, a group of nine local ministers called Tuesday on the School Board for ``full disclosure of its findings regarding Mr. Smith and the basis upon which he was reinstated.''
The clergymen, all members of the Interdenominational Ministers Forum of Virginia Beach, called a press conference at the Mt. Olive Baptist Church on Birdneck Road to express their concerns about the growing furor surrounding Smith's reinstatement.
``Why has the public not been given a full disclosure of this matter, especially since the news media has printed various negative comments made by politicians and others that tend to heighten public distrust and character assassinations of Mr. Smith?'' asked the Rev. Barnett Thoroughgood, pastor of New Jerusalem Church of God in Christ.
The Rev. Larry Hinton, pastor of the Mt. Zion AME Church, said Smith should ``not be singled out to bear the brunt,'' of the district's financial problems.
``We are saying to the whole community `Let's come together. Let's look at all the information,' '' Hinton said.
The ministers said their concerns were not about race, but about justice.
All of the ministers are African Americans, as is Smith.
``This could be anybody, it just happens to be Mordecai Smith,'' Thoroughgood said. ``If Mr. Smith is guilty of something, we will not stand here to say he needs to be back.''
The ministers said they informed Smith of their plans to hold a press conference, but that he did not request their intervention. He did not attend the gathering.
The group plans to speak before the School Board at its meeting Tuesday. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Mordecai L. Smith was to have returned to work Monday but took a
week's leave because of an illness in his family.
STEVE EARLEY/
The Virginian-Pilot
The Rev. Larry Hinton, pastor of Mt. Zion AME Church, seated left,
confers with the Rev. Barnett Thoroughgood, pastor of New Jerusalem
Church of God in Christ, while the Rev. Charles A. Vinson, pastor of
Piney Grove Baptist Church, opens the press conference Tuesday at
Mt. Olive Baptist Church on Birdneck Road in Virginia Beach.
KEYWORDS: VIRGINIA BEACH SCHOOL BOARD GRAND JURY INVESTIGATION by CNB