TODAY IS
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2018
Trump’s 695th Day In Office

We Need A Freaking Audit

At yesterday’s meeting of the Conservative Agenda, Political Insiders were asking Beloved Whistleblower Publisher Charles Foster Kane how Forest Hills School District leaders can claim they are not over budget on their building project.  On the contrary, rumors have circulated for a while that the district is eight figures over budget.  That is a difference needing some resolution.

Some Things Just Don’t Add Up.

The bond levy was for $103m.  We see that the latest district facilities report states $99m was the original budget for the school buildings.  Report shows about $1m short to finish Turpin and Anderson.  We’ve read the bus property purchase and preparation was estimated to cost close to $3m. 

Ding, ding!  We just maxed out the levy funds.

How much else is there?  We’ve heard the new district office building might have cost $2m or more (and they can’t even hold board meetings in it).  Voters were led to believe there would be a multi-million dollar expenditure on full time kindergarten. Statements have been made by Frooman and others about costs exceeding original estimates.  Hmmm.  At the very least, taxpayers seem to have been shorted on promises and longed on spending.

In light of this simple arithmetic and a clear habit of coverups, we suspect Forest Hills might have “cooked the books” to hide the financial reality of the situation.  We propose an audit by someone on the taxpayer’s side, not the school district’s.  We provide some hints on what to look for.

We might find project expenditures posted to operating expense accounts for contrived reasons (and thus the need for a large operating levy).

We might find project expenditures reclassified as maintenance or “permanent improvement” items. That would use money designated for operating and permanent improvement to hide the overruns.

Settlements for lawsuits are part of the project cost because those would not have occurred if there was no project.  Settlements may have been disguised as “amendments to agreements” with contractors and not found their way into the building cost ledgers.

And The Clever Auditor Might Just Find Even More.

All of this might have looked OK in a standard state audit.  But this is not the standard stuff those auditors would have been looking for.

While we have the books open, let’s check the project bidding on Doug Evans work for the school district.  Might also find some “urgent necessity” project designations circumventing bidding that Evans benefitted from and that the school district attempted to keep out of sight.

What’s the implication?  Perhaps misfeasance, or malfeasance, or nonfeasance.

Can’t wait to see who Board President Jim “Stonewall” Frooman throws under the bus on this.  Seems to be his habit these days.

Let’s remind Frooman (along with Heis and Smith) that in Ohio a school board member can be removed from office for misconduct in office.  “A board member is guilty of misconduct in office if he or she has willfully and flagrantly exercised authority or power not authorized by law, refused or willfully neglected to enforce the law or to perform any official duty imposed upon him or her by law, or is guilty of gross neglect of duty, gross immorality, drunkenness, misfeasance, malfeasance or nonfeasance.”

Is there a new Apocalypse in A-Town?

ALSO SEE: “Andersonian Angst” (AUGUST 16, 2017)