Wednesday, February 3, 2010

The old adage of an "honest day's work for a honest day's pay" is front and center as interim Superintendent of Schools Joe Burke strives to bring back fiscal responsibility, integrity and transparency to our school district's operations.

To that end, Burke recently suspended without pay and recommended the termination of cosmetology teachers David and Marisa Gootee for violation of the school district's Code of Ethics.

According to Burke's administrative complaint, the Gootees violated School Board policies including: preparing false time sheets for identical hours, submitting false time sheets indicating additional work hours which were not actually worked, and receiving additional compensation for work which had already been paid for by the School Board. Simply stated, they knowingly requested to be paid twice for the same work.

What seems to be a mystery is why did the school's financial control system apparently fail to detect this overcharge and pay them twice? We're talking tens of thousands of dollars over the years.

The Gootees do not deny they were paid twice for the same work, their defense seems to be is that their overpayment was approved.

Jeff Arnott, who replaced Monique Acevedo as director of the Adult and Vocational Education Department, said the Gootees told him Acevedo instructed them to fill out time cards because adults also attended their daytime classes, which were chiefly made up of high school students. Since they were already being paid as high school faculty, this resulted in paying them twice for the same class session.

Acevedo, who is awaiting trial on theft and fraud charges, is accused of diverting hundreds of thousands of dollars in school funds for her personal use.

The circumstances surrounding the overpayment to the Gootees raises serious questions.

Did Monique Acevedo have so much power and influence that she was able operate without any checks or balances? Why was it apparently so easy for her to circumnavigate administration policy to authorize double payments for her staff? Who monitors the issuance of payroll checks and their accuracy? Do other employees or contractors in the district possess the ability to override district financial controls?

This issue also brings to light that adults apparently attend daytime classes at the high school.

Why were adults allowed to mingle with, and attend cosmetology classes with, high school students during the day on the Key West campus?

After all, Florida's Jessica Lunsford Act, in an attempt to prohibit sexual predators access to schools grounds, requires non-instructional school district employees, contractual personnel including vendors, individuals, or entities under contract with the school board to submit to specific screening requirements prior campus access. Did permitting adults on campus to attend classes with high school students violate this law?

These are but a few of the inherited issues Burke is cleaning up. From what we see, it appears Burke is the right person for the job. He is a champion of student achievement while at the same time he is objectively, systematically and undauntedly eliminating causes and changing practices that have long drained the school system of its financial resources.

Like peeling an onion, hopefully with each layer Burke peels he will get closer to the truth and, in turn, re-establish public trust in school district operations.

-- The Citizen