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Colonial Beach council gives School Board until Wednesday to agree to demands for increased financial scrutiny Date published: 10/30/2009
BY FRANK DELANO Declaring that fiscal disarray in the school system threatens the financial health of the town, the Colonial Beach Town Council has asked the School Board to agree to greater scrutiny of school finances. In a resolution passed Wednesday night, the council said accounting problems have prevented completion of a school audit for the fiscal year that ended June 30. The lack of a complete audit could lower the town's credit rating and force the town to pay back state and federal aid received by the schools, the resolution said. "The impact on the citizens of this town could be immense," said Councilman David Coombes. Coombes said accountant Nancy Miller estimated the payback, if ordered by state and federal agencies, could amount to "between $1 million and $2 million." The agreement passed by the council calls for immediate action by the School Board to address more than a dozen issues. Saying it wished to resolve the issues "in a cooperative and conciliatory manner," the council "implored" the board to sign the agreement by Wednesday. That deadline is "absolutely ludicrous," acting School Board Chairman Timothy Trivett said. He said that the School Board's attorney would need to review the agreement before board members could consider it, perhaps at a special meeting. Trivett, three other board members and Superintendent Donna S. Power attended the council meeting. None of them saw the agreement until its adoption, and no school officials were consulted in drafting it, Trivett said. Trivett and Power said after the council meeting that they have been diligently addressing the school's accounting problems, some of which began years ago. Before he was elected to the board in 2008, Trivett was a critic of school finances. His findings resulted in a Virginia State Police investigation. A second state police investigation of school finances began this year. "For five years, I've told Town Council about financial issues in the School Board, and council ignored it. Now they want us to fix it all overnight," Trivett said. In March, Miller identified several of the issues contained in the agreement in her presentation of the town's fiscal year 2007-08 audit. The audit criticized accounting procedures of both the town and the schools. In March, Miller downplayed the possibility that the town might have to repay federal grants. "In theory, the federal government could come and ask for the money back. In reality, I have never seen it happen," she said. Miller also said that the town and the schools lacked an effective control environment to ensure correct accounting. But council and School Board officials met only once to discuss a better system. A wholesale turnover of top school administrators and squabbles in and between the two bodies delayed the effort. Frank Delano: 804/761-4300
Date published: 10/30/2009
The current council is repeating history. Instead of working with a reform-minded school board, they're trying to discredit them with actions like this. All this is designed to do is put the school board on the defensive. That's because the current mayor and council's agenda is nothing about balancing the books. Rather, it's about finding a way to turn the school system over to the county, thus kow-towing to the vocal minority that wish it so, without saying so up front. Cowards.
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