The independent Special Education audit has been revived at the 11th hour and will go forward, with the School Committee voting at its meeting Monday night to have Chairman Stu Sklar sign a contract with Gagliardi Associates to do the work.
The audit was authorized and funded by a vote at the March 2007 Annual Town Meeting. A committee made up of members of the school board, selectmen, Finance Committee, and town residents was formed to ascertain the scope of the audit, select a consultant to do it, and oversee the process. This committee chose Gagliardi this spring, but no final contract was signed before the group became inactive after the town elections.
School board member Keith Cheveralls, who had resigned from the audit committee in April upon his election to the school board because he felt he could no longer serve as a community member, this month started pushing the process along again. The money for the audit would revert back to town coffers on June 30, unless the contract is signed by then.
Gagliardi is still willing to do the work, Cheveralls told the board, but it probably won’t happen until near the end of the year because of the firm’s workload. From the audience, former selectman Bob Eubank, who had also served on the independent audit committee, told the school board that that group had been confident that Gagliardi was a good choice to do the work.
When school board member Willie Wickman asked Eubanks who would oversee the work, since the committee had become inactive, he replied that there are still three members: Bob Thurston, Steve Colwell, and Leo Blair. The school board just has to appoint one of its own members to serve, along with two community members, to reconstitute the group, he said.
Both Wickman and Sklar noted that having the audit done would fulfill “the will of the people,” but Sklar expressed great frustration that the schools’ scarce resources would go toward something he sees as a waste of time and tax dollars. Both a special education task force review of the program, and a state special education audit have been done in the last year, each finding nothing amiss with Harvard’s program.
“This is the most colossal waste of money!” Sklar said in an exasperated tone. “It will duplicate the state audit, and cost $18,000, but I will sign it.”
The board voted to go ahead and sign the contract, with four votes in favor and Sklar abstaining. Wickman said the board would turn the matter completely over to the independent audit subcommittee, as the voters had made it clear that the School Committee has “to stay out of it.”
