THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, March 2, 1996 TAG: 9603020278
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A4 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KAREN WEINTRAUB, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Medium: 93 lines
The School Board members who were told this week to step down or face prosecution earn less than $5,000 a year for the privilege of poring over Bible-thick packets of data, attending hours-long monthly meetings and answering hundreds of phone calls and letters.
With all those demands, and little experience running big-budget enterprises, it's no wonder the board members relied heavily on the advice of highly paid school employees.
The special grand jury accused the board members of trusting top administrators too much. Several local politicians agree that Virginia Beach School Board members were guilty of weak judgment. But those leaders admitted this week that what happened to the board members could happen to anyone in public service.
``I think all school boards are vulnerable,'' Ulysses Turner, chairman of the Norfolk School Board, said Thursday.
All public officials depend heavily on the work of professional staff members, a number of local city council, school board and General Assembly members said this week. The trick, several said, is to pick good staff members and keep close tabs on their work.
The grand jury report, released Wednesday, suggests that the Virginia Beach School Board did neither.
The jurors found that the board hired a superintendent who got rid of anyone who gave him bad news and promoted a budget director who was incapable of performing his job. Board members routinely ignored red flags. And they rejected the City Council's efforts to add more controls, the report concludes.
For those lapses in judgment, the jury said, the board members who have served for more than a year should step down. Two resigned in the weeks leading up to the report; two more have resigned since.
School Board members receive some basic training in ethics and government when they take office, but they are not taught how to read a balance sheet.
Barbara J. Coyle, director of board development with the Virginia School Boards Association, said her group welcomes new board members, provides orientation classes and offers annual courses in curriculum, personnel and current issues in education. Finance courses are not part of the lesson plan, Coyle said, because every district handles its finances differently.
School district budgets are extremely hard to read, making it difficult to understand how the money was spent. Repeated budget transfers, totaling $43 million last year, made tracking Beach schools' money virtually impossible, according to outside auditors who reviewed the district's finances.
The grand jury's report also revealed that then-Chief Financial Officer Mordecai L. Smith prepared another 1995-96 budget after the School Board voted to approve the only budget they knew existed. Smith never told board members about the new budget, and, according to the jury's report, collected all but five copies of the original one, so no one realized he had made $2.9 million in unauthorized changes.
The special grand jury said there is no question that the School Board's trust in Smith and Faucette had been abused.
``. . . But the point is that trust in supposedly professional staffs should never reach the level of `blind trust,' '' the report reads. ``The fact that it did in this case is, in our view, an indictment of the School Board rather than an excuse for what occurred.''
Several Virginia Beach City Council members said this week that they don't blame the board for being ``naive,'' as the jury charged, and for getting hoodwinked by its administration. But, they believe board members fell down after the crisis came to light.
``It was just a shame after this became public that they just didn't assume responsibility,'' Council member John A. Baum said.
The grand jury concluded that the board was ``in denial,'' that board members failed to realize the significance of what had happened.
Vice Mayor W.D. Sessoms and several other council members think the answer is to go back to a council-appointed School Board.
``I'll be the first one to state, the elected School Board did not cause the problem,'' Sessoms said, ``but the problem with the elected School Board was in resolving the problem.''
Elections have made the board too political, he said.
``I think the appointees will certainly try to work better with the council,'' he said, ``in knowing that they don't have to go up for election and make all these promises that they can't keep, spending money they don't have.''
Without recommending a specific solution, the grand jury also criticized the system - where school boards are not accountable to the public for funding, because their money is raised by the city council. If the structure encouraged more fiscal responsibility, the jury said, the board members might have trusted less and questioned more.
Despite his concerns about the district's finances, Del. Frank W. Wagner said he still believes an elected school board, without taxing authority, is the best system for Virginia.
``I'm not ready to give up on elected school boards,'' he said.
KEYWORDS: VIRGINIA BEACH SCHOOL BOARD by CNB