School officials say they will not resign

WINSTED — Sending a strong public signal the board has lost confidence in the district’s leadership amid a deepening financial crisis for the town, the Winchester selectmen have requested the Board of Education seek the immediate resignations of Superintendent of Schools Blaise Salerno and school board Chairman Kathleen O’Brien, who have responded by saying they will not resign.

The requests were made through two separate motions — one for Salerno’s removal and one for O’Brien’s — during a special joint meeting between the selectmen and school board at The Gilbert School Monday, July 12.

The vote to remove the superintendent was unanimous. And the vote to remove O’Brien was 4-1, with Selectman Michael Renzullo voting against the motion and board member George Closson not able to attend the meeting.

According to state statute, the selectmen cannot directly seek the resignation of the superintendent of schools or board of education chairman, but can only forward their official request to the school board. It is now up to the Board of Education to determine how it will respond to the selectmen’s request.

But both Salerno and O’Brien told The Journal Tuesday that they had no intention of resigning from their positions.

Salerno said he will continue to work for the district until his contract expires July 31, 2011, at which point he will retire from his educational career.

And O’Brien said the several school board members who attended Monday’s meeting indicated to her that they had no desire to seek her removal.

“They do not wish me to resign,� she said.

O’Brien added that while Salerno might not have the confidence of the entire Board of Education, she said the expense of removing him as superintendent and then finding a replacement in haste, would be prohibitive to the town.

“It will cost a lot of money ... and that’s money that we don’t have,� she said.

Not unprecedented

When former Superintendent Anne Jellison was removed by the school board in 2005 — during which time O’Brien was  chairman of the school board — her settlement agreement stipulated that Jellison continue to collect her $105,755 a year salary as well as a $14,000 annuity and other benefits until the end of her original three-year contract period.

These payments were made even though Jellison took a new post with the Meriden Public School system before her contract expired.

“It’s easy for the the Board of Selectmen to tell us what to do when they don’t know the ramifications of what they request,� O’Brien said.

Fiscal problems

The Board of Selectmen’s actions come after news early last week that the school district’s deficit had ballooned to at least $343,961. Previous reports over the last several weeks from the school administration to the selectmen and the school board had placed the shortfall at about $120,000.

Salerno said the deficit was due to an over-expenditure of $589,000 in the district’s special education budget. The superintendent said the spike in costs was created by an unexpected jump in the number of students with special needs placed in the district by state agencies.

Town Manager Wayne Dove said Town Finance Director Henry Centrella had “blown the whistle� on the possibility of the school district’s running into the red six months ago, but his warnings had gone unheeded by the school board.

During the discussion prior to the board’s votes, the selectmen continually expressed their frustration, and at times anger, at their inability over the last several months to get accurate and complete information from the superintendent and the school board chairman on the district’s financial standing.

“We have been asking since February for these numbers,� Mayor Candy Perez said, adding the selectmen had continually told the superintendent and school board that if they knew the district would exceed its special education budget, then they should immediately pass that information along to Town Hall.

“It’s the fact that, for the last five months, we haven’t been told,� she said.

In response, O’Brien said the school board had also been asking about the extent of the district’s financial problems, but had been told by their former Business Manager Edward Evanouskas that everything was going to be “OK.�

“We kept being assured and assured and assured that we were OK,� she said.

“The board was getting bad information and Blaise was getting bad information,� O’Brien said, referring to Evanouskas’ financial reporting.

Evanouskas submitted his resignation to Salerno July 2. The resignation was effective the same day.

Evanouskas had been placed on administrative furlough by Salerno from June 14 through to the end of the school year, June 30.

The move came after the former business manager failed to provide information requested by Centrella, Salerno told the selectmen at their June 11 meeting. Evanouskas said he had e-mailed the information, but Centrella still did not have the information the following day.

The superintendent said Evanouskas also failed to provide documents for last month’s special “education summit� meeting at The Gilbert School.

Audit performed

To ensure the town had a clear picture of the district’s deficit, the selectmen had the town’s accounting firm, the West Hartford-based Blum Shapiro, conduct an audit of the school board’s books last week for the 2009-10 school year, which ended June 30.

The current shortfall of $343,961 — which was first reported to the selectmen by Salerno at their July 5 meeting — was confirmed by the July 7 audit. The town must also make up a $73,000 reduction in state transportation grants for the district’s special education program, which would bring the total deficit to some $417,000.

“It’s an estimate, but a fair estimate, but we’re still working on that estimate,� Dove said.

He added that both he and Centrella have been repeatedly asking for Salerno’s office to forward information on the district’s “payables� and “transfers,� but have yet to receive them. This, he said, has not allowed the town to get a full picture of the deficit for the last school year.

“We’re still waiting for that info, and I don’t know when you’re expecting to send that across,� Dove said.

Salerno said he had thought the accountant had brought that information from the central office to Centrella and Dove after conducting her audit last Wednesday. But he said he would now forward that documentation to Town Hall as soon as possible.

In addition, Salerno said he would follow up on a resident’s report to a school board member that some of the district’s fuel tanks may have been recently filled.

“If they were filled, that would be a really egregious spend at this point,� Perez said.

Salerno said he would pass along the records for June’s expenses as soon as the information was all in and complete, as it takes time to close out the district’s books at the end of the school year.

O’Brien urged patience, as she said with no business manager and only two people in the central office to address fiscal issues, it will take time to process the district’s financial information and town board’s requests.

“I’m just saying you’ve got to give them an opportunity to do it and do it well,� she said.

Seeking oversight

Dove requested that the central office open up its computer system to Centrella, to allow the finance director to put in the correct information for the 2009-10 school year, “because the budget information in the schools’ system is incorrect.�

“The best way is to let Henry assess the system to see if it is being used properly,� he said.

Dove said the options before the selectmen to offset the school district’s deficit include issuing a supplemental tax to residents, using the remaining $400,000 or so in the town’s fund balance, or shifting over funds that have been set aside for asbestos remediation and other much-needed repair projects in the town’s school buildings.

“It doesn’t matter what we do now, the taxpayer is going to take a hit,� Dove said, adding that if the selectmen had known the true extent of the district’s deficit problem earlier this year, they would have had more options before them to close the budget gap.

“If we had known about this five months ago, we could have mitigated this. But you can’t when you’re chasing the ghost,� he said.

“This hit will literally wipe out the fund balance,� Dove said. “We’ll be broke.�

The selectmen decided to table a motion put forward by Kenneth Fracasso that the town would not take any money from its fund balance to bridge the schools’ budget gap.

The board is hoping that Dove and Centrella can find a solution to the school district’s financial crisis that does not involve issuing a supplemental tax or using up the majority of the fund balance.

“I’d just ask that you give us time to look at alternatives. There’s got to be something other than that,� Dove said, referring to supplemental tax.

“If you want somebody to go out with a supplemental tax, find somebody else besides me,� he said.

The selectmen unanimously approved a third motion at Monday’s meeting that asked Dove to “confer� with the board’s labor counsel to explore the possibility of holding “any and all responsible parties� who may have overseen the district’s books during the deficit build up “personally responsible� for the Board of Education overspend.

Also, Perez requested that the school board make their monthly financial reports available to the selectmen.

“We want monthly reports and we want that starting Aug. 2,� Perez said of the selectmen’s first meeting next month.

“We want to know that you’ve got your financial house in order,� she said.

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