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Assistant Superintendent, Billerica, Billerica Blog, Marie Blanchette, MEC, Paul Cugno, Politics, School Committee, School District, superintendent
Here is an item that came to me after my last posting by way of a solid source and confirmed to a point by a second source: The Billerica School District has not returned any funds to a significant degree of unspent budget funds in the last 7-8 years. Many other departments have given money back at the end of the fiscal year for a variety of reasons, such as:
unexpected departure of the Town Manager
hiring freeze while there was no Town Manager
fuel cost less than planned…and much more.
The School Department has a $50+ million dollar budget, and yet, has never underspent in the past 7 or 8 years. How is that possible? Here’s a hint. Government agencies operate under the premise that if they don’t spend all of the money they are given, they will lose the difference between funds granted and actual funds spent in the following years budget. In the military, officers are often demoted or delayed in promotion for such conscientious acts.
Apparently, the same psyche is in play with the Billerica School Committee/District. There is no incentive for them to cut costs, save and return unnecessary funds to the taxpayers at the end of the fiscal year. This is a stupid system and a dangerous fiscal philosophy considering our current economic situation as a town, as a state and as a nation. It is the antithesis of prudent austerity measures that need to be put in place to counter the cuts in state and federal aid that we all know are coming.
It’s time to find ways to reward managers who save money while remaining highly effective in the execution of their department’s daily functions and to punish those who waste or simply fritter away taxpayer funds simply because they can. Town budgets need constant monitoring and that monitoring must include methodologies that are good at detecting waste or abuse. Fiscal policies and budgetary rules need to be adapted to encourage fiscal responsibility and to discourage spending sprees designed to eat up unspent funds at the end of a fiscal quarter or year. The how’s of such changes are for another day. Sufficient to say that there is evidence enough that prudence and austerity are not in the School Departments vocabulary.
To verify my statements above, consider consulting with the Finance Committee or reviewing past budgeting and spending records. And speaking of records…
Do you find it acceptable to have a member of the School Department making recommendations or participating in the selection of high level school administration candidates when that person has a career interest in doing the same for his or her company? On the corporate side of town, we have members of various boards and committees recusing themselves frequently due to the perception of a conflict of interest; even when it is known by all that there is none. Yet, the School Department seems to have, and to operate under a different set of principles and a philosophy distinct from the corporate side of town.
Even when cleared to vote by the state ethics committee, some members of corporate town boards and committees have still refused to vote out of personal conscience. Will Ms. Blanchette be like minded when she is called upon in the hunt for a new Superintendent and assistant? I don’t think so. My impression does not arise from a personal knowledge of her. I’ve never met her. However, she was the first to speak about “finding someone quickly who knows Billerica quite well” and that raises a red flag in my mind. Could there already be someone to her liking in mind? If so, considering her relationship with MEC, should she even make a suggestion or consider casting a vote? I don’t know the answer, but I will be interested in following the process. I hope you will be interested as well.
My concern with the School District is that it seems to be unaccountable and unwilling to make itself accountable, voluntarily. I have posted strong suggestions for a forensic audit of that agency, and I’ve shown many examples of why doing so is important. I have been told that several members of the committee have discussed reading some of those article, and yet, not a single member has made a comment on this issue; not even Dan Cugno, who I now, regretfully, admit to supporting for his election to that committee. His silence and minimal contribution to ensuring a full and fair evaluation of the School District has me wondering, now, why he bothered to run. Likewise, that also is a story for another day.
Ah, you have awaken — you are now seeing what I see.
I’ve been awake all along, and all I’ve seen you and the BTPA do is either sit in silence or wail like some paranoid child about how no entity in town can be trusted except the BTPA and their supporters. I’ve seen no call for an audit of the school department on your part. I’ve seen no commentary on your part to support my year long call for such an audit. I have been waiting and came to the conclusion that, like always, the BTPA and the rest of the so called “conservatives” will remain silent until the last minute. Suddenly, just before the next election, the BTPA Robocalls will start making demands for action to keep the status quo while cutting revenue sources (without being specific, of course) and doing so mostly for all the wrong reasons. But thanks for taking the time to comment.
As an officer in the United States Air Force, how many times did you tell departments under your command to save as much from their quarterly fiscal targets as possible and work to not spend to the limits allotted to your organization? I was a member of the submarine force where money and supplies were virtually limitless, especially to a special projects command; yet, I spent like the money was mine. That was because I realized that some of the money supporting my medical department budget actually included my tax payments.
Rick,
As an officer in the United States Air Force I took my fiduciary responsibility to be a steward of the taxpayer’s money very seriously — and to that end I developed many enemies within the military bureaucracy and industry. I worked in the both white programs and special projects … I fought fraud and waste my entire career and often to my detriment. A bureaucracy rooted in waste does not like someone pointing it out.
There are not robo calls from the BTA — and you obsession with a small group of concerned citizens that make up the BTA is surprising to me. Your year long call for an audit??? LOL. We have been calling for full audits for a decade. Accountability to the people is what we have demanded — so people can make an informed decision. Total Trust in the corporate Town is not the role of the people — or as they say in the Treaty Monitoring realm “Trust but verify”. Conflict of interest has always been a problem in this Town and this incident with the MSEC and MEC is a prime example of why it must be ended (to include the appearance of conflict of interest). This is not an example of an aberration in the system, because it is endemic– it is an example of a system that has lost its way.
I appreciate your military background and I too took hits over the spend or loose it mentality the feds foster. You have my sympathies for your time as a diligent officer.
The last time we exchanged correspondence on the topic of the School Department receiving a forensic audit (Jeff Parenti’s blog), your comment was that it was discussed by town meeting but felt that the cost was too high at this time of financial stress.
As to my “obsession” with the BTPA, it was you and Tony who made your organization out to be the big deal pre-elections issues experts, and when the new Parker School was being voted, y’all were robo-calling, blogging, commenting like crazy on Topix and other locations pushing your agendas. Never once have I seen a call for a “forensic” audit – vastly different than a full audit – from the BTPA. Those audits require an in depth comparison of finances based on purchase orders, plant property inventories, serial numbers or plant tags and transfer/disposal documents to ensure every thing purchased is accounted for as in use or legally disposed of. Ultimately every penny over a pre-determined length of time is reviewed (generally 5 – 10 year periods).
The MEC scandal and the confirmed corruption there by managers high up, coupled with branches infiltrating into the Billerica school system and an apparently ongoing investigation into Marie Blanchette, in my view, scream for an audit. My last impression, based on remarks by you paraphrased above, indicated that you and your town meeting associates (and I’m presuming fellow BTPA members) possessed no more than a laissez faire attitude. This comes after my having posted on multiple occassions, stories where single districts embezzled billions of taxpayer dollars. The whole tone of the conversation [comment exchanges], as I recall it, was reminescent of one living under a do as I say, not as I do philosophy. If you’ve made such public calls for audits of any kind; I have yet to hear or see them, and the past history of your group and your plethora of opinion pieces in local papers indicates that you and the BTPA are quite capable of making a lot of noise.
Appearance is everything, and it is more than apparent that the majority of town leadership could give a shit less about how people view them or about the damage they do in the name of salvation. They are so busy buffing themselves for others to glipse what they see as they pass their wives vanities that they can’t pull their noses out of their own asses long enough to see that a world beyond their petty influences and pitiful power performances truly exists. Billerica is in jeopardy of a fiscal calamnity, and those who claim to be serving for selfless reasons seem to be engaged in some heavy duty napping and excuse making.
As you can tell, I haven’t one iota of political tact, which is why I don’t run for office or venture up to express myself in person. My biggest problem as a civilian has always been being born with hands that act faster than my mind cares to think when I’m surrounded by pompous individuals who see their helium filled cranial cavities as a sign of intellect and enlightenment. These are not signs of smarts, but they do fit the symptomatology of nothing more glamerous than a bout of rectocranial inversion [walking around with your head up your ass]. Do you remember this comment to another reader in the same disussion we had on Jeff P’s blog: “When one takes on the role of having all of the answers but fails to even attempt to act in the direction they advocate, in Texas, they are said to be all hat and no cattle.” As a government representative and self-proclaimed taxpayer advocate, you might benefit by giving the underlying philosophy some thought. If the horseshoe fits, wear it.
But no worry. I’m done with any genuine concern for the school department, the corporate town or anything else Billerica. I have better things to do than waste my time and space whispering into a hurricane blown by persons who adore breathing their own wanton winds to build a future of neglect and destruction where complaining is stockpiled in abundance and one is never bored by achievement. I am trying some new sources beyond the boundaries of Massachusetts to get an audit done. In the meantime, I will, however, reserve the right to rip anyone I choose that draws attention by acting the fool; not because I need to do so, but mostly because I enjoy doing so. I was taught early on in my naval career that a good leader can’t be afraid of earning his or her bastard buttons. I’ve got a house full of those puppies amd more awards for getting them than I can hang up. I still live to earn more.
PS: You do realize that your new expression of concern pertains to an article that is now 9 months old, don’t you?