School Board Delays Discussion About Auditor’s Concerns Over Budget Transfers

By John Voket

Two attempts by school board vice-chairman Debbie Leidlein to ask questions and initiate discussion about an auditing firm’s finding that the board has failed to comply with state statutes and its own policy regarding budget transfers were thwarted during a December 7 meeting. Before the discussion could begin, another board member moved to table any public discussion of the matter until a later meeting when the auditor could be present to answer questions.

Contacted for comment Friday, school board chairman William Hart said that while the process used to postpone discussion of the audit might not have been technically correct according to the board’s procedural practices based in Robert’s Rules of Order, he supported the idea of waiting until the auditors were present to discuss any assertions they made in the report.

Mr Hart told The Bee that he received and read, “but hadn’t studied the audit” before the December 7 meeting, and that he had an opportunity to review the directives related to transfers. But the school board chairman said he was concerned because the auditors failed to “cite the statutory violation,” which is referred to in their management letter.

“I read it, but I don’t know if I fully understand it. I think we need to understand what that assertion is based on,” Mr Hart said of the statutory reference. He added that the board has been waiting to speak to the auditor, “for quite awhile,” and said later that he had asked Superintendent Janet Robinson to set up a meeting with town auditors “three months ago,” but that meeting is still not scheduled.

“The laws are vague and the auditors haven’t told us what we are in violation of,” Mr Hart said, adding that he is also interested in asking the auditors, “what we have to do to clean up the 2008–2009 fiscal year.”

Mr Hart said he also supported the move to wait on discussing the audit because there was no emerging deadline requiring that discussion be held, and described the apparent need to rush the audit report onto the board’s agenda as a “knee-jerk reaction.”

Ms Leidlein said after she read the audit, which flagging the Board of Education’s violation of a statute regarding budget transfers, she went through the proper process to add the issue to the school board’s agenda hoping to at least present the issue for the record.

That report, which was provided to The Bee for review on November 29, raised concerns about the failure of the school district’s business office to properly report financial transfers to the Board of Education. The auditor’s management recommendations note that the proper administration of transfers is “required by state statutes and board policy.”

The Newtown school board’s policy, “requires that budget transfers between objects be approved by the Board of Education. The board policy provides that management is authorized to make and approve transfers within object codes.”

The auditing firm, Kostin, Ruffkiss and Company, indicated that the reason why the transfers are not being handled in accordance with the board’s policy “is unknown.” But the report states that the “effect is that Board of Education is not in compliance with the state statutes and board policy regarding approval of budget transfers.”

For the future, the auditing firm has recommended that the school’s business office begin submitting budget transfers to the Board of Education as required by state statutes and board policy.

After requesting Mr Hart add the item to the agenda, and receiving confirmation that it had been added prior to Tuesday’s meeting, Ms Leidlein’s request came up as the last piece of business for the evening just ahead of a second round of public comment and adjournment.

Motion To Table

According to a recorded transcript of the meeting, and confirmed by Ms Leidlein, the moment her requested agenda item was introduced school board member Andrew Buzzi countered with a motion to table any discussion on the matter until the board received an official presentation from the auditing firm. A vote of 6-1 supported tabling the agenda item with only Ms Leidlein opposing.

Then, a few minutes later, Ms Leidlein asked her chairman if she could ask school business manager Ron Bienkowski about the audit recommendations, but her request was dismissed and a motion to adjourn the meeting was made and seconded — eliminating any possibility of Ms Leidlein getting any questions answered on the record that evening.

She said Mr Bienkowski previously stated, and is quoted in minutes from an earlier meeting, that a number of communities in Connecticut already use an “encumbrance-based” system of financial management instead of reporting and getting transfers regularly reviewed and approved by the board.

Ms Leidlein said that besides expecting to initiate discussion about the audit, which is now a matter of public record, she went to the meeting December 7 with the hope of convincing the board to reverse its September action. That recent action would permit the board to entertain as few as a single end-of-year transfer that would incorporate all department level transfers made by the business manager or administration throughout the previous fiscal year.

That hybrid system of financial reporting had been piloted for more than a year already under former school board chairman Lillian Bittman, who made the original motion to officially adopt the new financial reporting practice.

“I expected that the board might table a motion to formally return to a transfer-based reporting system,” Ms Leidlein said. “But I was taken aback and disappointed that all discussion on the statutory violations was tabled.”

Ms Leidlein said the latest move by her board reinforces what she described as a pattern that shows both “disregard for state law, but also our own regulations.” She cited the fact that her board was already found in violation of three areas of the state’s Freedom of Information statutes, following a complaint lodged earlier this year by former board member and vice-chairman Kathryn Fetchick.

Ms Leidlein said when she read the audit with its directives about both town and school district financial practices, “it was quite clear the Board of Education is violating state statutes (again) by voting to not do transfers.”

And following her attempt to at least bring the issue to public light on the board’s agenda, Ms Leidlein contends the board violated its own policy in silencing her “minority opinion” about publicly discussing the matter sooner rather than later.

She said that the school board’s policy is to conduct its meetings under the guidelines of Robert’s Rules. And she said those rules clearly indicate that the “laying on the table,” or tabling of motions such as hers is clearly forbidden when intended to silence a minority member of the board or commission involved.

In the end, Mr Hart said his goal is to make sure the district and his board, “do a good job, and do the right thing going forward.”

“Nobody was trying to do a delaying tactic,” he said of Mr Buzzi’s motion. And in regard to the improper use of the tabling procedure, the school board chairman said he was “sure this was not the first time we made a mistake (according to) Robert’s Rules.”

Mr Hart said going into the December 7 meeting, he fully expected to entertain Ms Leidlein’s motion, and that he circulated an email prior to the meeting to ensure all the members were notified that his vice-chair proposed a discussion of the audit be added to the agenda.

Mr Hart said that ultimately, he hopes to get away from so much focus on procedural controversies, and get back to the “business of educating our kids.” And while he is not dismissing or attempting to minimize the auditor’s citations of statutory violations, he said the issue of properly reporting transfers is “ceremonial,” and has no substantial impact on the school board’s overarching mission.