Information uncovered by the town’s audit of its finances could possibly lead to criminal charges in relation to the special education expenditures, Police Chief Ed Denmark said this week. And officials confirmed that the town’s special education expenditures are being investigated by several government agencies and departments, including the Worcester County district attorney’s office and the state Ethics Commission.
—Police Chief Denmark
In March and April, Sterling attorney James E. Gettens, representing two unnamed Harvard residents, filed for records about special education expenditures under the Freedom of Information Act and copied the Board of Selectmen, School Committee, Finance Committee, the state auditor, inspector general, attorney general, commissioner of education, and local newspapers. Several government agencies launched investigations as a result.
Denmark said in an interview earlier this week that he was waiting to see the results of the town’s financial audit—not the special education audit—which the Board of Selectmen discussed at their June 19 meeting. “Basically what I’m looking for is whether Gettens’s information is correct,” he said. Denmark made clear that the district attorney’s office will determine whether criminal charges are appropriate. “The ultimate decision on whether to prosecute is the D.A.’s,” he said.
This week, Harvard’s director of special education, Charles Horn, said that he had been interviewed by the Massachusetts Ethics Commission and the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Inspector General. The Ethics Commission said that its investigation would take six months and the inspector general’s office was waiting for the ethics board’s findings, Horn said.
Gettens said June 15 that he had turned all information over to the Ethics Commission, the district attorney’s office, and the state’s Department of Revenue. Although he had heard from an assistant district attorney, he said, he has not been told the status of the investigation. “They are doing the right thing and do not give any information,” he said.
School Superintendent Tom Jefferson declined to comment on the investigations and former school board member Paul Wormser, the recipient of the “questionable” payment cited in the audit, did not respond to messages left for him.
