Guilty

Lona DeFeo, Fred Foresteire's school department maintenance director, has pled guilty to procurement fraud and was sentenced to two years of probation, community service and other conditions. While these charges could have brought jail time, it appears that given Mrs. DeFeo's age, and the fact that she gained no profit from the bid-rigging scheme - there was some compassion exercised. The felony charges do prevent her from getting a pension.

What does the school committee do now?

After their unabashed support for Mrs. DeFeo and the Superintendent, they can no longer avoid doing what they should have done nearly two years ago. They have to fire her or ask for her resignation. The bid-rigging scandal is no longer alleged; it is real. And the Superintendent? Well, something has to be done about a superintendent that allowed a bid rigging scandal to occur on his watch, not to mention the audit, with its uncertified teachers, hundreds of thousands of dollars of misspent state and federal grant money, the special education slush fund and other assorted improprieties.

What happens next? That's anyone's guess right now.

We're betting that if the Superintendent doesn't go to trial or plead out beforehand, the School Committee will give him a raise in June.