Time to Focus

In the three weeks since the news broke about the City Auditor accusing the Superintendent of making "illegal" expenditures through Shore Collaborative, a lot of name calling and finger pointing have taken place. People on both sides of the argument -- ourselves included -- got caught up in the rhetoric with very little focus on the substantive questions. This is not a simple issue -- but it was brought a bit more into focus at last Monday night's Common Council meeting.

The question of the legality of the expenditures is still not clear, but what is clear is the questionable nature of the expenditures. The City Solicitor indicated that additional information is required before a final opinion can be rendered. In the meantime, however, a little more detail was presented at Monday evening's meeting that seems to indicate that the School Department sought to circumvent established procurement processes by claiming that one invoice in particular was paid with private funds -- after Jack Garron, the City's Procurement Officer, had indicated to the Superintendent that three quotes were needed before the City could render payment for the services, or indeed, before the services should even have been contracted. The "private funds" ultimately used to cover this invoice were paid out of the reserve funds being held at Shore Collaborative . . . monies that are, in reality, public taxpayer dollars.

Additionally, copies of other invoices that were received by the City Auditor indicate that the charges were approved for payment through Shore by the Superintendent and the then Director of Special Education Edward McCormack. However, most of these invoices are not considered to be "special ed" related -- so this would beg the question of why the Director of Special Education would be signing off on them -- unless, of course, the monies being used to pay them had been earmarked for special education services.

Finally, there is the still open question of legality. We do not purport to be legal experts. However, in reading Chapter 40, Section 4E of Mass General Laws -- the law which establishes the Collaborative -- the law clearly outlines the Collaborative and the Trust Fund that it will manage. The Trust Fund -- not to be confused with the "reserve account" -- is managed by the Treasurer of the Collaborative under the direction of the Board of Directors. Chapter 40 does not address the establishment and management of this "reserve fund." The reserve fund comes under the agreement between the Collaborative and the member communities. The Agreement states that the Board of Directors may choose one of three options when dealing with program funds remaining at the end of the fiscal year: they may put it into a reserve fund, they may use it for current operating expenses (of the Collaborative), OR they may return it to the city. It does appear, then, that the Board of Directors established this reserve fund. The agreement does not, however, indicate the manner in which these funds should be disbursed; therefore, logic and law must dictate that these funds -- being public money -- would fall under the rules of municipal finance law & Department of Revenue advisories and must go through the same approval process as any other expenditures made for services rendered to the city. This did not happen.

Rhetoric has its place -- what would American politics be without it? It makes for good coffee shop talk. It should not replace the hard work of government. As we stated at the outset -- this is not a simple issue, and there will be more information to come. In the meantime, our thoughts are this -- when it comes to the use of taxpayer dollars, assigning blame or motive to the actions of our city officials -- be they appointed or elected -- does nothing but muddy the waters. It is the affect of their actions on your tax dollars that is important -- and that is where erring on the side of full disclosure should be the preferred method.