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| At the risk of sounding like a broken record ... |
(Submitted to The Emptyprize and CCT -- they both seem to have lost interest in the story after stirring the pot last winter! I guess it's distracting to have some actual facts mixed in with the usual rancid rhetoric!)
A draft of the Independent Audit of the Sandwich Community School for the year ended June 30, 2009 was completed on August 27. This independent audit criticized Community School accounting and management practices as well as the lack of School Committee oversight prior to the elimination of the Executive Council last year. The audit also made clear that the Community School’s Executive Council had failed in its duties to properly supervise financial operations and may have acted illegally when authorizing certain contracts, leases and payment warrants.
Former School Committee members, including the undersigned, endured harsh public criticism for pressing for the audit and for questioning past budgetary practices. The local media, including this paper, continue to turn a blind eye to this issue, despite the audit results which make clear that the Community School was a managerial and financial reporting mess with unclear supervisory lines, insufficient internal controls, and poor accounting practices which served only to obscure both revenues and expense information.
There is still no definitive answer as to how much money has been diverted from the K-12 school budgets to pay for Community School operations. Based on the audit, all we know for sure is that while K-12 teachers, staff and expenses continue to be cut, the Community School continues to siphon budget dollars out of our classrooms.
Because the Community School provides a valuable service to residents of Sandwich and surrounding towns, it is essential that the School Committee hold itself and the Administration responsible for ensuring that the program be managed in a truly self-supporting and financially prudent manner. It is outrageous that the current Committee has yet to respond to these audit findings.
A full copy of the draft audit report is available from school committee members, or may be accessed online at http://www.notthepta.org/.
Robert Simmons
Robert Guerin
(Former Chairmen of the Sandwich School Committee 2008-2010)
6 comments:
Just amazing how the heads of the school committee and the newspapers are still stuck in the sand on the Comm. School Audit results.
They just keep wishing upon a star that the efficient superintendant and the audit all fade away, so they can return to the good ole days with siphoning off K-12 monies to prop up the C.S.
Does anyone else feel ignoring the audit results and continuing to use taxpayer K-12 monies to prop up C.S. offerings is at a criminal level now? Especially now that everyone knows about the illegal, unethical practices for the past 25 years. Shouldn't someone call the DOE or the A.G. office on this?
The silence is deafening ...
Finally, I received the below email from the CCT:
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Your letter to the Cape Cod Times
From: "CapeCodTimes, Letters"
Date: Mon, October 18, 2010 9:41 pm
To: "bob@capesimmons.com"
Dear Mrs. Simmons and Guerin,
Thank you for your letter. Please note that our policy limits letters to 200 words. Given the sensitivity of this issue, I think it best that I not be the one to do the distillation. Please pare this down to its essential elements and resubmit if you would like us to consider this for publication. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Julie Lipkin
Letters editor
I have since removed 99 words and re-submitted. Let's see what happens. (I did not even criticize her use of the term "Mrs." as the plural of "Mr.".)
amusing that they limit the number of words you can use to complain about their (lack of) coverage -- yet they will use an unlimited number of words to whack you around if they so choose.
Apparently I hit a nerve ....
From: "CapeCodTimes, Letters"
Date: Wed, Oct 20, 2010 2:57 pm
To: Bob Simmons
I have edited your letter and sent it along to the design desk for placement on a future page, but it may be awhile, given the flood of election-related letters we are receiving.
By the way, I must tell you I found your blog post containing my response infantile.
JL
----------------------------------------
It will be interesting to see what the final letter looks like ... AND when it finally shows up! I will publish a more formal reply later.
Although -- it is nice to see that the CCT admits to monitoring this blog!
10/20/10 8:12 PM
Bob: Congratulations! It’s good to know that the staff of the Cape Cod Times spends their working hours reading your blog. Here I was thinking that it was just public sector employees who wiled away their work day surfing the net looking at porn. Good to know that slacking off isn’t a lost art in the dreaded private sector.
Your email exchange and your experience with the staff of the Cape Cod Times editorial page is eerily familiar to my recent experience trying to publish a letter you, me, Dana Barrette and several other current and former school committee members signed. That letter like yours also criticized the Times and the current Sandwich school committee.
My letter was well within their word count limits, so….I was told by the Times editorial staff that the Times needed to “fact check” my submission prior to its publication.
Really? The Times “fact checks” its opinion page letters? I asked incredulously. The women I spoke with on the editorial staff assured me with great gravitas – they do.
I am still not sure how you “fact check” sentences that begin with words like: “We believe” and “In my opinion”, and “Its our understanding that…” but what the heck, there aren’t many paying jobs left at newspapers, including the Times, and somebody’s paying their rent with this “job.”
Apparently, if you want to question or criticize that part of the print media profession that Howie Carr lovingly calls “bow tied bum kissers” you better be prepared for lots of push back, attitude and obstacles – all in the name of “fairness,” “accuracy” and “objectivity” of course.
If nothing else you gotta love the Times editorial staff for the dogged consistency of their bias. We are all left to wonder was it newspaper giant William Randolph Hearst or Paul Pronovost who first uttered that now immortal newspaper credo: “it’s my paper and I’ll print whatever the hell I want – true or not.”
The saga continues -- it's been a week and the CCT has managed to find room for a few more letters with such "local relevance" as warning parents that Halloween is anti-Christian, warning of the potential slaughter of birds in wind turbines, and some ramblings about Chilean miners -- but nothing about local programs diverting public school dollars, the School Committee that seem willing to allow it --- OR the newspaper who doesn't want to cover the story.
I heard that Bill Keating's Law Degree was issued by the Sandwich Community School --- maybe that would attract their attention?
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