Chair: Blame For Accounting Problems Lies With School Committee

BURLINGTON, MA -- Burlington School Committee Chairman Thomas Murphy Jr. said Tuesday the committee and administration deserve blame for the spotty accounting practices that have led to questions about financial mismanagement in the school system. Murphy's comments came after an hour-long presentations by Town Auditor Jim Powers, who did a thorough analysis of the performing arts revolving account that had been one of several accounts where an outside auditor found problems in a review last year.

"Clearly, going back over the foreseeable past, at least as long as I've been around anyway and probably longer, the revolving accounts in general have not been well accounted for in this town and probably others," Murphy said. "Ultimately thats not staff's fault, it's not the employees' fault, it's the administration's fault, so the blame lies up here."

Murphy's comments were echoed by school committee member Kristin A. Russo.

"I'm disappointed and upset -- I'd been assuming this had been [handled] correctly," Russo said. "I'm disappointed with myself and the administration for not looking at this closer."

The review by Powers was a "deeper dive" into the music revolving account that was reviewed by Roselli, Clark & Associates last year after going from a $40,000 surplus to a $50,000 deficit over the course of three fiscal years. Roselli said it was unable to do a complete audit because it was not given a complete set of records, but still produced a report that raised questions about how the account was maintained and questioned the district's policies.

Like the outside auditing firm, Powers said he had trouble forming a complete picture because of less-than-rigid accounting practices. He noted that certain purchases made through the account should have been drawn from a different pool of funds, and he offered the committee detailed explanations of problems with deposits, cash handling and ticket sales for the shows put on by the school that were funneled through the account.

In particular, Powers was concerned about tickets that were printed but did not have records of having been sold and $8,000 paid in cash to people manning the ticket sales on the night of performances. Those people were paid $40 per hour and $60 per hour for weekend performances and were often paid in cash on the night they worked.

"Those people worked those hours and deserved to get paid, but you don't do it with cash -- it needed to go through payroll," Powers said. "Once I saw that this had occurred, I knew this really complicated the reconciliation. While previously there had been an assumption that everything was on the books, now there was clearly activity off the books."

Still, Powers didn't recommend that the committee conduct a further review, noting that it wouldn't be cost effective. "There's only a limited amount of revenue that could possibly be missing," he said.

"Clearly the blame lies up here, and the responsibility for the cure lies up here as well," Murphy said. "I just want it to be out there that we have new policies and procedures in place.....it doesn't excuse what has happened in the past, but I think we're righting the ship."

The committee approved reclassify nearly $32,000 in expenses in the music revolving account to the building and grounds account to comply with the recommendation by Powers to accurately account for spending and close the deficit in the performing arts account. Under state law, revolving accounts cannot carry deficits.

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Patch file photo of Burlington School Committee Chairman Thomas Murphy.

Dave Copeland can be reached at dave.copeland@patch.com or by calling 617-433-7851. Follow him on Twitter (@CopeWrites) and Facebook (/copewrites).