Progress noted on BOE

Those of you who have followed our reporting on the BOE will recall that Phil Kramer has been requesting an outside independent review of the operational budget of Franklin's school district. The good news is that we seem to be making progress. The new Superintendent, Ed Seto, appears to support the concept. He has contacted four groups that perform operational audits (as he calls them) to evaluate what they can provide and how much it will cost. One group has responded and he expects to hear from the other three soon. This does not mean that the BOE will perform the audit; they plan to weigh the cost verses the benefit and then decide.

An uneducated guess of the cost of a even a partial operational audit would be $100,000 at a minimum. This is a formidable sum so knowing what it can provide is crucial. Several BOE members however have already expressed their concern about the cost and thus are leaning away from it. The remainder of this article is aimed to point out two recent findings that may lead some to argue that perhaps, depending on the nature of the audit, we can't afford to not pay for the review.

During the public session of the Nov 15th BOE Action Meeting Ms. Myra Mitchell spoke on behalf of herself asking to be returned to her job as a teacher. She has been on paid suspension for 15 months. When TUF heard this we requested, under OPRA, an accounting of those on Paid Administrative Level of Absence (LOA) since the last complete budget cycle. The law prevents them from disclosing information such as names but this is what we received.

We have no problem with 1 through 7. These were rectified in less than two months. It is the last three that concern us. They total $459K. It is our understanding that one of these cases has gone to trial. Our question is what took so long and why haven't the others also gone to trial or arbitration.

We spoke to Ms. Mitchell and learned that no one other than her lawyer has deposed her to learn her side of the story. Thus it appears to us that there has been insufficient action in her case since she was suspended. We hasten to add that the BOE cannot legally comment on the specifics of personnel issues thus we can get only one side of the story. Further we understand that when in court these matters can take months but 15 months of inactivity prior to court is inexcusable.

We lay responsibility for this squarely on the prior (Westfield) administration. It's too soon to expect Mr. Seto to find all of the problems. He has just taken the helm and appears to be on top of things, but we will be watching. He told TUF that he will report on the progress of these two cases in three weeks. That would be 3 ½ months after he took over. Given that he has many other issues to handle all at once this is very reasonable.

We also question the interaction between the BOE and administration. The BOE members are our representatives for oversight of the administration. Unfortunately they are part time volunteers who do not observe day-to-day operations so if they are not aware of problems they cannot take action. When the BOE was asked at the Nov 15th meeting what procedures are used in these cases the response was, "personnel matters vary so much there are no guidelines."

We suggest at the very least whenever someone is on LOA for three months or longer that BOE members be advised monthly of the status of the case, how much the LOA has cost in salary to date, and what has been done in the last month.

Had there been quicker action the Township would not have saved all of the nearly $459K but we might have saved more than half of it ($240K).

It appears that in a recent audit disclosed that the district had been paying medical insurance and benefits to personnel who were no longer employed. Not only did this happen this year but also the year prior despite an audit at that time indicating the same thing. The potential loss to the Township was on the order of $600K. This is NOT a misprint, six hundred thousand dollars. Fortunately it appears that the Township may be reimbursed for that mistake.

One might argue that this was seen in an audit and still wasn't stopped so why would an outside operational audit disclose anything else? Because as the terms of the outside audit are negotiated TUF plans to be as involved as possible. We will ask that a version of the results be in plain text and in a manner that can be understood by any reasonably intelligent person. That all of the results be made public on the Internet at the same time they are made available to the BOE and that interested parties can register to be notified by email that the results are available.

With minimal sniffing TUF was able to find well over $800K of waste/potential waste. Would an operational audit have prevented this? At this time it's difficult to tell. Until the four groups Superintendent Seto has contacted tell us what they can deliver we won't know. But two things are clear:
1. The BOE cannot claim that there is no waste in the system.
2. The onus is upon them to show that an operational audit will NOT save at least as much money as it cost.

Phillip Kramer

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