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HOLDEN, Mass. — The Holden Board of Selectmen is continuing its search for answers for the $2.7 million in accounting errors made by the former Wachusett Regional School District business manager.
The School Committee recently voted to terminate the contract of Business Manager Peter Brennan after it was reported that an error in the fiscal year 2012 budget led to an over-expenditure of $1.2 million and an additional $1.5 million shortfall in employee benefits and insurance for FY13.
The cause of the error was found to be the result of internal spreadsheets used by the business manager to monitor budgetary spending, which were not routinely compared and reconciled to the MUNIS system.
Monday night, the board voted unanimously to support a request to the district for both MUNIS system reports for all funds and expenditures and revenue acccounts for all periods within FY12, as well as copies of the spreadsheets that Brennan used, which were furnished to the school committee.
"These are the 'second books' that people are commenting on," Selectman Anthony Renzoni said.
"As a member town and contributing 54 percent of our tax revenues, I have some serious problems with where this money is goingm" he added. "I want to know because I don't know."
Renzoni also pointed out the options the board has in terms of initiating an audit by the state, including requesting the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to conduct their own audit on the district. The board could also make a request the State Auditor's office.
In an effort to get to the bottom of the errors, last week the Wachusett Regional School District's School Committtee voted 17-1 to develop an RFP for an independent stage I forensic audit, capping the cost at $50,000.
"If we have $50,000 to put a teacher back on the books with, I don't know why we're spending it on an audit," Renzoni said. "I hate to see them spending money hiring an auditor when these state departments exist for this reason."
The board requested that town counsel look further into this course of action.
The school committee initially estimated the cost of a full forensic audit from Fiscal Year 2011 to present at potentially $300,000, but in light of the severe educational reductions faced last week, opted instead to pursue an audit in phases.
"We've heard from several auditing firms already who recommended a stepped approach to see where the issues lie," said School Committe Chairman Duncan Leith. "If there are any issues that should be further investigated, they would be."
Leith said the school committee will move forward "until we get all the answers that we need."
"No doubt there's been some serious mistakes made in our budgeting process, and one thing that an audit will do is to help us set up better controls so you won't see stuff like this happen again," Leith said. "It's the public's money, we regret the situation we're in. We have a lot of good people on this committee and a lot of good people who are working in the school district who will make sure we take this seriously. We cannot have this go on and we shouldn't have had it happen in the first place, so I want to apologize for that."
Leith said that the district's own auditor, Powers and Sullivan, will be coming in next Monday. He also said they would not be considered to take on the independent audit.
Comments (23)
Last week there was a posted regional Selectboard, Finance board and WRHS school committee meeting held in Holden. Where is there any reporti
ng of that meeting?
Mr. Ethier your memory has apparently faded with age. Over the years I have attended and spoken at dozens of school committee meetings. Perhaps you were too busy running wires and plugging in microphones to notice.
Perhaps you have forgotten that Duncan Leith, Margaret Watson and Cindy Bazinet have been on the SC dating all the way back to the dark days of the Al Tutela regime.
Perhaps you have forgotten all of the costly mistakes that have been made along the way. The $1.4 Million reporting error in Special Ed funding, the $139,000 in ‘Wasteful Spending’ caught by the Inspector General’s investigation of their budget, the $15 Million cost overrun on the high school project, the $6.4 Million in lawsuits we lost on the high school project, the $383,645 accounting mistake they made last September, the $1.2 Million overspending mistake last month, the $1.5 Million mistake (also last month) in the insurance and employee benefits budget (and these are just the mistakes we know about so far).
Tens of millions of dollars in mistakes, 'Wasteful Spending', cost overruns and lawsuits. Perhaps you can explain why Duncan, Margaret and Cindy have failed time after time to catch even one single mistake.
The SC has some very capable new members who are willing to step up and do the job. Members who are willing to ask the tough questions and make the tough decisions that Duncan, Margaret and Cindy have failed to do time after time, year after year. It is time for Duncan Leith, Margaret Watson and Cindy Bazinet to step aside and let these new members clean up the mess.
Without their resignations the credibility of the school committee will remain at ZERO!
We need to educate children and that costs money. We also need to be sure that our tax dollars (some $90 Million per year) are being spent wisely. We need to ask the tough questions before we end up in yet another multi-million dollar crisis situation. We tried giving ex-Superintendent Al Tutela a blank check and we all remember how that ended.
Ed Meyer now includes former superintendent Al Tutela in his ongoing charactor assassinations. Tutela led the WRSD through some of the most difficult and important years in its history. Under his strong leadership new schools were built in every town in the district including the three new elementary schools in Holden and student performance showed much improvement. In fact, his tenure as superintendent led to greatlly improved education for the region's public school students and his record of accomplishment is to be applauded. Once again, I understand why Meyer did not like Tutela as he actually improved the schools.
As Ed Meyer and Mark Ferguson continue their personal attacks against Duncan Leith, Margaret Watson and Cynthia Bazinet I would like to remind readers once again that Meyer and Ferguson have opposed every school building project and every school budget put forward in the past 15 years. They care nothing about public education and will use any excuse to hurl dirt at three of the most effective advocates for education the region has. Although members of the WRSDC are elected there are few people who are willing to give up so much of their time and actually fill the positions on the committee. Ed Meyer--if you know so much about everything why aren't you running for this committee? Having sat through hundreds of lengthy school committee meetings (I never recall seeing Ed Meyer at any of them) I can understand why it takes a highly dedicated person to actually participate. Duncan Leith was one of the leaders in the effort that resulted in three new elementary schools in Holden and a new high school for the district. Meyer and Ferguson led the battle against all these projects. In fact, they also opposed every other positive thing Holden has ever done including the underground placement of the wires on Main Street, the new Light Department, the new Police/Fire facility and every other project that actually cost money. These three WRSDC members are no more responsible for the mistakes that were made then the other 17 members of the committee yet they are continually singled out. I call this a political vendetta and Meyer in particular has been carrying out political vendettas and smear campaigns for many years. Mistakes were made by highly paid professionals and they paid for these mistakes with their jobs, just as they should have. Efforts to smear dedicated volunteers who staff the WRSDC are outrageous and totally unfair. Leith, Watson and Bazinet are to be commended for the thousands of hours of service they have given to the Wachusett school system and to the town of Holden. Wachusett schools are among the top in the state yet the district spends much less per pupil then the state average. That is fact. Look it up.
Why is the School Committee giving out raises in the middle of their budget crisis?
The School Committee recently fired Business Manager Peter Brennan. Mr. Brennan’s FY12 salary was $106,600. The SC voted to advertise this position with an annual salary of $115,000 – an 8% - $8,400 per year increase.
Mr. Pandiscio’s current annual FY13 salary is $198,603 - $3,819 per week (one of the highest salaries in all of New England).
The Worcester School System is roughly four times the size of the WRSD and their Superintendent, Dr. Melinda Boone, is far more experienced than Mr. Pandiscio but her current annual FY13 salary is only $183,600.
Given the WRSD’s dire financial situation we trust the SC will reconsider the $115,000 posted salary for Mr. Brennan’s position and that common sense will prevail and they will post Mr. Pandiscio’s position at a far more reasonable $175,000 per year salary. The estimated $30,000 we save in salaries will buy a lot of classroom supplies for the kids every year.
Note: Given the failure of the Director of Human Resources to catch any of the more than $3 Million in financial mistakes including the $1.5 Million mistake in her own budget, she should not be considered as a replacement for Mr. Brennan.
Brennan was out of his element
dwilliams, we have to clean house because the grunge under the rug that couldn't be seen is now apparent. Someone took the rug away, and the mess is glaringly apparent now. And you and I are going to have to pay for the clean up. I'd rather spend my money on something else than emergency procedures that could have been avoided. No one denies that there was a mess under the rug. Pandiscio has even stated that we need new guidelines so that this doesn't happen again. The same is true of all of the other examples I gave. Someone took the rug away - the IG's office, the State Auditor, the Feds, etc. - and found dirt beneath with Merrimack and the Central Mass collaboratives. Joe Taxpayer cares more about this kind of situation than you may realize, especially when he's giving up amenities to balance his own budget.
It is clear that Diminimus Maximus, dwilliams, Viola and others (some members of the school committee) who hide behind their childish aliases are trying to cloud the multi-million dollar mistakes made by the WRSD.
The FACTS are simple. The district has admitted to making more than $3 Million in financial mistakes just over the past nine months (that we know about so far). The district kept Two Sets of Books (they keep trying to call the second set of books a ‘spreadsheet’). The district presented this error filled second set of books to the school committee without telling the SC that they were not the official MUNIS system books. The district repeatedly failed to reconcile their second set of books with the MUNIS system. If they had they would have caught their $383,645 (September 2011) and thier $1.2 Million and their $1.5 Million mistakes this year. Tom Pandiscio moved money between accounts without the permission or even the knowledge of the SC (an illegal act we are told).
The SC fired Peter Brennan and Tom Pandiscio resigned. The senior members of the SC (Duncan Leith, Margaret Watson and Cindy Bazinet) have been on the committee since the dark days of the Al Tutela regime and not one of them has ever caught a single one of their numerous, extremely expensive mistakes. Duncan, Margaret and Cindy Bazinet should be held accountable for their repeated failures to protect our tax dollars (some $90 Million per year).
Until Duncan, Margaret and Cindy Bazinet are gone the credibility of the school committee will remain at ZERO!
I think these comments deflect away from my main point, which is that excess money that was intended for our children from our District taxpayers apparently ended up moving outside the district, or at least that's what it appears to have done with the $1.4 million error I found on the DOE website with Wachusett's overpayment to the collaboratives. That's also what happened with the Merrimack Collaborative, where over $10 million in taxpayer dollars was used for alcohol, parties, trips to the Kentucky Derby, etc. Corruption happens - unless you have good checks and balances and alert citizens in positions of power. Ask yourself, how did they find the millions of fraudulently spent Merrimack collaboratives money? Now consider the recent news article about Central Mass's collaborative, and you will find that they had $4.5 million in excess in their till and were told by the State Auditor to return it to the school districts from whence it came. Not only was that money from taxpayers that could have been accruing interest in their accounts rather than in the collaborative's bank account, but it's federal dollars as well. Some guy in Alaska had a portion of his taxes sitting in a Massachusetts collaborative. And the local taxpayer was paying local and federal taxes into such accounts. The point here is that the money should have been more transparent, not that less money should be going to schools where it's needed. Heaven forbid if that were the case considering Time Magazine's recent calculations that by 2020, "the world will have a surplus of 93 million low-skilled workers," while there will be "a shortage of 85 million high- and medium-skilled workers." This is about the health of our economy, the American people, and our future as a country. But when there are leaks in the bottom of the boat, it slows the boat down from getting to its destination. Transparency occurs when alert, honest people are in positions of authority and are creating the rules. It's lost when they are asleep at the switch. When someone is asleep at the switch year after year, then it's dangerous to others and it's time to remove them. Finally, about my family and the threats, time will tell. The truth has a power all of its own.
Oh, well this makes all the difference in the world; we have to clean house because of Merrimack, Central Mass, the Kentucky Derby, and "some guy in Alaska."
Got it. Also.
I repeat: a witch hunt. New names added daily, even names of members who weren't on the committee before May, nevermind when the commenter says she was threatened. If such a thing took place, seek redress against that person. What is occuring here is wholesale, blanket smearing of members new and old with no one differentiating between heresay, grudges, rumors, and evidence. There have been allegations in the comments of illegalities, fraud, votes for favors, dishonesty, collusion, often with specific names attached. Then calls for resignations without any due process whatsoever. If anyone resigns in the face of such pressure, that in itself will be touted as evidence of wrongdoing.
Classic witch hunt.
Finally, another voice of reason (see Tim Either's comment to "Wachusett Superintendent Thomas Pandiscio Resigns," Holden Daily Voice, 8/13/12)--and one that is, by virtue of his close-hand experience, an authoritative one.
While the Ed Meyers, Mark Fergusons and the other nameless, faceless members of this cabal of "Just Say No" types have and will continue to ballyhoo the errors that Mr. Brennan admittedly committed--errors that led to the resignation of Dr. Pandiscio--for all the political gain possible, it must be remembered that there are those who have for the better part of a decade been on a school committee that has overseen great advancements in the core mission and school committee: the education of our children.
To listen to Meyer, Ferguson and their lackeys (both on and off the school committee), you would think that the core mission of the school committee is to lower the taxes of Holden's residents by decreasing the school budget to the bone. As Mr. Ethier has indicated, it was under the leadership of these three individuals--and I'll add the several others on the committee who really do put the education of the kids first--that the WRSD is one of the only districts in the state that simultaneously holds the distinction having its kids in the top quartile on standardized testing *and* at the absolute bottom of per-pupil cost.
So, while we see Ed Meyer endlessly perseverate about how Duncan Leith, Margaret Watson, and Cynthia Bazinet--and her name is Cynthia, Ed, not Cindy--must permanently and immediately resign from the school committee for the reason that they failed to catch these most recent errors, never acknowledging that well that 17 other members failed to catch them as well, one has to wonder if there's something more than the misconduct that he alleges without evidence that motivates him and the rest of that crowd to this most recent witch hunt.
There must be, for if there were no other grounds, and length of service on the committee were the only criterion than mattered in the assessment of a member's culpability for failing to catch certain errors, then length of service must also be considered when assessing responsibility for all that has gone right in this district over these years. Where's Ed Meyer, Mark Ferguson, and the rest of them when it comes to handing out congratulations for the test scores? The lowest per-pupil funding? The graduation rate? The students who go on to the best schools in the country? Where are they then? Nowhere to be found.
The parents of this district ought to be thankful for not only these achievements, but that they were gained by in a district where the school committee is under constant barrage from folks who care more about their almighty tax bill than their kids--oh wait, I forgot, some of those kids go to private schools--so let's just say they care about their tax bill more than *your* kids.
So let's not be fooled into thinking that the WRSD--all of them, and most often with the leadership of Leith, Watson, and Bazinet--has helped make this one pretty exceptional school district, all the while maintaining maximum cost-effectiveness, without having to suffer daunting odds, official roadblocks, personal invective (even frivolous lawsuits), and a prevailing attitude on at least the current board of selectmen and a certain segment of the community that are, to put it mildly, averse to any cost expenditure above subsistence level.
Let's also not be fooled into thinking that these folks haven't and won't use the Brennan errors to take whatever political advantage they can wring out of them. After all, that's what we're witnessing on these very pages and at the meetings of both the school committee and the board of selectmen.
This is personal and political opportunism at its worst.
Maximus. If you would like to see some evidence, I'd be happy to present it as I tried to many years ago through the democratic process via a newspaper - freedom of speech and freedom of the press. My family got threatened, our children's lives got threatened. I was told that if I continued to look into special education, "one of your kids could get hurt." That came from a school committee member, Maximus. And there were more threats, and a DA told me to document them. And they went to law enforcement. The time has come for new blood because this latest transfusion is only going to last so long. This is far from a witch hunt. There are some very serious issues at stake here, but no witches attached to them.
The witch hunt expands. New names added daily, including a school committee member who has held her seat for only a couple of months.
This is utter hysteria. Mr. Ed says new member = good, older member = bad. Now "Time for a change" throws two more to the wolves, calls them dishonest. Names on a list, no charges, no evidence except guilt by association, votes that some disagree with, and, selectively, longevity.
To whip the public into a frenzy in order to purge the committee of some of education's strongest supporters will not serve the community well in the long run. The superintendent's resignation is being used as a catalyst for anyone with a grudge to call for further resignations just because. People are being named, tried, and convicted in the court of public opinion without benefit of any due process, none. Someone screams from the rooftops, "They should have known!" and resignations should flow? People should just step down with no opportunity to clear their names just because Mr. Meyer demands it?
This is wrong. Newer school committee members should speak out against it -- if they dare. As in the witch hunts, as in the days of Joe McCarthy, speaking up for the rights of the accused may simply add a new name to the list.
It's very reasonable to request that these school committee members resign. We need a major transfusion, folks. The district is hemorrhaging, emergency procedures are already in place, but we never would have reached this point (now a very expensive procedure) if others in the emergency room had been awake and noticed the doctors' mistakes. We now have the expense of an ambulance, emergency room procedures, and surgery. The bill is going up rapidly. Now the doctors' miscalculations and faulty procedures have put the patient in rapid decline with a ripple effect that has now affected the entire family and put their children's financial stability in jeopardy. A large band aid was wrapped around the wound, giving temporary relief, but it's going to have to be replaced soon, and someone did a lousy job restocking the medical supplies. And the nurses just stood by and watch and handed them the tools, or slept, and could have averted this disaster by speaking up or raising questions about why the scissors had been allowed to sit in the patient for so long, a mistake made by a previous procedure, which had evolved into an emergency. The patient also was myopic (yes, vision was a problem, too). If this emergency was happening in someone else's community, we would be wondering why the entire staff was not responsible. These were very, very bad decisions that cost a district millions. And those are just the financial decisions. I have seen the signatures of Duncan Leith on past questionable budget expenditures. Did he review them before adding his John Hancock? I caught a $1.4 million error on the Dept. of Ed. website in 2004 in payments from Wachusett to the FLLAC collaborative. It reached that point before being flagged. Why didn't any of the school committee members catch it? They had access to all the budget info before it went up on the website. Had something been done at that juncture, when I raised a red flag in The Princeton Outlook newspaper, we might not be in the "emergency room" today. But instead of paying attention to the suffering patient (who seems to have had a pair of scissors left in his gut for years and years from the last surgery) several people, including a school committee member, chose to make questionable and threatening comments to me about my children - and even "mentioned" DSS. Then, after a series of serious events, we moved. So much for the messenger. So now we have found more mistakes in the 2012/2013 budgets. What about the budgets between 2004 and 2011? Those who were representing the District during those years should take the right and "honorable" step post haste - they should step down and allow others to have the opportunity to serve. You can view references to the 2004 budget errors on Page 10 of The Princeton Outlook newspaper at this address: http://www.gallopinghillspublishing.com, go to the Princeton Outlook tab, scroll to the bottom of the page, and click on Vol. IV, No III
To Mountaineer: Yes, we all do want the same thing, Financial Accountability. With more than $3 Million in mistakes (that we know about) just over the past nine months it is clear that there has been NO Financial Accountability.
Mr. Pandiscio’s resignation is a start. It is now time for the senior members of the school committee (Duncan Leith, Margaret Watson and Cindy Bazinet) to resign. These three have been on the school committee since the dark days of the Al Tutela regime and not one of them has ever caught a single one of their numerous, extremely expensive mistakes.
Until they are gone the credibility of the school committee will remain at ZERO!
Watson's experience?? Like Tutula's financial disaster now Pandiscio's financial disaster? With that type of experience maybe we should consider some inexperienced minds...
Let's not forget Colleen Cipro and Sarah Lamontain.. They both need to go.. Isn't Duncan Leith on the finance subcommittee? Would that make he responsible for the loss also? Watson and Bazinet need to go due to their over the top arrogance toward the people who elected them!
While I think it's great that Holden's town select board is so interested in this issue, I have two observations. 1. Where are the other town's selectmen? They all have been very quiet in the papers. 2. We are heading down a very slippery slope if these young Holden selectmen think that just because Holden pays 50% of the budget that they deserve more than the other towns. This district was built to be a unit. The towns pay what they are required to pay, and yes sometimes it's less. We are a district and not 1 town vs another. I am sad and angry that there are people that don't realize that. Where is the unity? We all want the same thing.
I believe that you haven't heard much from other boards more due to timing of thier meetings and lack of quorums at this time of year. They do have families and vacations just like normal people. I know this to be fact in a couple of the towns. If you think they aren't interested and that this is not a "hot" topic with them then you will be surprised with some of thier upcoming meetings. Don't confuse the refusal of those boards to jump to conclusions and grandstand with apathy. This is not to say the Holden Bos did, its just that thier schedules were different.
If you read the Job Description for the Business Manager, I believe you will see that it was his responsibility to ensure that adequate Internal Controls were in place (which would have prevented these errors). However, read the job description and you'll see that the responsibilities for the BM were enormous. It seems he was doing the job of at least 2 people and therefore his oversight of internal controls was overlooked. I don't think it's the job of the school committee (Leith, Watson etc) to audit the procedures performed by the Business Mgr. They relied upon his work, and could have questioned him, but failed to do so. Doesn't the Business Mgr report to the Super Intend? Therefore, it was the Super Intend. who should have reviewed the work done by the Business Mgr and caught these errors. Don't blame Leith, Watson and all the others.. having them step down and electing new members won't necessarily solve the problem. Watson and others have a lot of knowledge when it comes to the school board and losing them would only hurt the situation. @ Gallows: NO there weren't contorls in place. If there were effective controls we wouldn't be in this mess.
WHY?
Why didn't any of the senior school committee members (Duncan Leith, Margaret Watson and Cindy Bazinet) catch even one of these Million Dollar mistakes. Isn't that their job?
It is time for Duncan, Margaret and Cindy Bazinet to step down and let newer members of the SC step up and fix the problems.
Without their resignations there will be NO return to 'Credibility'.
There are appropriate controls in place. Administration ignored them.