THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, March 24, 1996 TAG: 9603220224
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 07 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: On The Street
SOURCE: Bill Reed
LENGTH: Medium: 70 lines
It seems the 1994-95 school budget fiasco is finally winding down.
On Tuesday school budget director Mordecai L. Smith, the guy left holding the bag when former Superintendent Sidney L. Faucette left town for a job in Georgia, resigned.
To refresh your memories, Smith had been restored to his old job by the School Board after being placed on administrative leave by the same board for his alleged complicity in sending the education finances into a deep tailspin.
This is the same School Board that was excoriated by a special Circuit Court grand jury for falling asleep on the job while top administrators like Smith and former school Superintendent Sidney L. Faucette overspent the budget by $12.1 million in the 1994-95 fiscal year and another $4 million for the current fiscal year.
The grand jury, you may recall, said both Smith and board members were unfit for continued service and should be charged with malfeasance in office if they did not resign.
All but two board members decided to step down and faded quietly into the landscape. The two who decided to stay and fight - even though they could be indicted on malfeasance charges - are Tim Jackson and Ferdinand Tolentino.
Last Tuesday, after Smith announced his decision to step down from his school post, his attorney, Timothy P. Sceviour, walked to waiting TV cameras and directed a few salvos of his own at the 10-member grand jury panel that had blasted his client.
The grand jury's findings were exceedingly suspect, he noted somberly as cameras zoomed in on his chiseled chin. ``The whole story hasn't been told.''
Anyone watching the news report, or who kept abreast of the entire story as it unfolded over the past year, could only scratch his or her head and wonder, ``WHAT IS THE WHOLE STORY AND WHY HASN'T IT BEEN TOLD?''
To that, head scratchers could add this question, ``WHO IS GOING TO TELL THE WHOLE STORY AND WHEN?''
If there is a ``whole story'' to be told, certainly there is somebody, somewhere in the vast city bureaucracy to tell it, if such a thing really exists.
That's why the special grand jury was empaneled in the first place - to ferret out the ``whole story.''
Dribs and drabs of it have trickled out of the school administration building and city hall in the last 12 months, often grudgingly, but it took the 10-member jury panel - armed with subpoena power - to dig out the facts and put them in a blunt 21-page report released in February.
That report harpooned both board members and top school administrators, citing their ineptitude and refusal to take responsibility for the budget nosedive, among other sins.
The report seems thorough and straight to the point. But to some minds it was exceedingly harsh, especially in its assessment of sitting board members.
What, if anything, can be added to the narrative should be placed on the public table so every taxpayer in town can judge for him-or-herself what the ``whole story'' really is.
They are owed that much, since they are the ones paying the freight for the city's education system.
If there is nothing to be added to this sad saga, then we should all get on with the next step in the healing process: electing a new School Board in May, a board that will help get school finances in order and see that they stay that way - like good public custodians should. by CNB