The Hot Potato Called Responsibility

It's been a difficult couple of weeks since the State Auditor's Report came out indicating serious fiscal mismanagement issues in the School Department and the need for tighter controls in various departments at City Hall. It's been nearly two weeks of finger-pointing, butt covering, blame-placing, name calling and grandstanding. What it has not been is a couple of weeks where grown ups with real responsibilities have been willing to stand up and be accountable for their actions -- or lack of actions, and the biggest offender of this unwillingness to take responsibility are the nine sitting members of the Everett School Committee.

There has been a lot of talk about how the responsibility for what has happened lies to some degree with the Ragucci administration. While there are some "control" issues that have been resolved, most notably with the retirement of Donald Andrew, our former city auditor, the fact of the matter is -- the School Education Reform Act of 1993 put the responsibility for the management of the school district with the Superintendent and the responsibility for the management of the Superintendent with the School Committee. The well-rehearsed presentation by the School Committee on Monday evening, May 16 only served to reinforce the accepted popular belief that the School Committee will rally around the Superintendent no matter what -- because they have been co-opted into Kool Aid drinking sycophants who refuse to stand up and do what's right. Now they are looking to pass responsibility for the management of the school maintenance program over to the City -- as if saying, "do it yourself if you think you can do better" completely absolves them of the mess that they made in the first place.

The Mayor and the Common Council were absolutely correct in calling for the Superintendent and Mrs. DeFeo to be suspended. That subject will come before the Board of Aldermen tonight, and it will be interesting to see whether any of these gentlemen will step up and support the recommendation. Everyone understands that the recommendation is just that – a recommendation. Again – only the School Committee can make the decision to suspend the Superintendent and the Maintenance Director. They will not, however, do that without some pressure from many sides.

The Board of Aldermen have also placed a resolution on the calendar to request that representatives of the Administration and the School Committee attend a joint Finance Committee meeting to discuss what controls are being put in place ensure that this type of fiscal mismanagement does not continue. It will be interesting to see whether the Board will use this as a way to sidestep the question of Mr. Foresteire and Mrs. DeFeo’s continued employment with the City. These are two separate issues – and it is difficult to understand how the city can overcome the fiscal mismanagement of the School Department when those most culpable for it continue to receive a paycheck from the City.

Yes, responsibility can be quite a hot potato. It will be interesting to see how long it takes to cool it down before someone is willing to take it.