Update: August 5 - I added articles below from the Daily Commercial and the Orlando Sentinel, plus memos and attachments from Board Member Cindy Barrow.
I was just at a workshop for the Lake County School Board, and they reviewed the response from Anna Cowin to an audit report where she authorized spending $600,000 on salaries for a "TAP" program without Board authorization.
Based upon the lack of coherence in the response, and the presentation of a third audit by RSM McGladrey about another situation where over $400,000 in unauthorized salaries were paid based upon staff being instructed to make changes in the computer, the Board went nuts. Following a proposal from Cindy Barrow, the Board voted unanimously to gather evidence of apparent wrongdoing by Supt. Cowin and send it to Florida Gov. Crist to determine if she should be removed from office. Now, it is only 90 days until her term expires, but Cowin's flippant response to the TAP audit and other issues (like calling a press conference in the middle of budget hearings to conflict with it) didn't win points, and the Board basically got fed up and decided to ask Crist.
They instructed the District auditor to assemble the evidence from two audits, and other sources of info to send to the governor. According to the Board's attorney, the state law that specifies criteria for removing an elected official has only three allowable criteria: Malfeasance, Misfeasance and competence. The Governor's office would have to determine if the evidence provided by the Board met one or more of those criteria.
I will add more tomorrow morning. (Done - see below)
Frankly, I was surprised at how animated four of the board members became, and all five voted yes.
Catch news on Channel 9, or in both papers tomorrow. The reporters were all there.
vj
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Here is a recap from Board member Cindy Barrow, followed by articles from both local papers...
This message is from Cindy Barrow, Lake County School Board Member, District 3. This message is NOT an official message from the Lake County School Board. This message contains my thoughts and opinions. I am responsible for the contents of this message.
Dear Citizens:
Your School Board heard the audit report by RSM McGladery on the "Control of Positions" in our district. This audit was reviewed by the school board appointed audit committee and passed onto the board for review in a workshop setting. The contents of this document contain some disturbing information about manual override of our system controls. The audit report tested controls in 6 areas and found 5 areas to be at high risk. They were: manual override of the system controls, standard operating procedures, position and adjustment approval, district level staffing plan, and school based allocation documentation. School Board members with much more longevity than I were particularly critical of a continuing pattern of verbal approvals to override our control systems without the knowledge of the school board. This audit supported the limited scope reviews on the TAP program performed by the School Board Auditor. More specifically, the outside audit firm of RSM McGladery found the allocations for the additional teachers for the TAP program, not to have been approved by the school board according to the procedures utilized by the board in our allocation formula.
I will quote from the report:
"Our review identified significant issues with a relative risk ranking of "High" including instances of management override of internal controls and rationalization by management to disregard policies. Most significant of these instances was the Superintendent's override of the control of positions process which requires School Board approval to add positions above the approved allocation formula. This resulted in the use of over $600,000.00 of operating dollars without going though the appropriate Board approval process, although these expenditure were approved in the "overall" budgeting process."
After hearing the results of the control of positions audit, the board heard my agenda item to advance a decision on whether to request that the Governor review the TAP audit findings and all other supporting documentation of problems discovered with the TAP program to render a decision on suspending the Superintendent for misfeasance, malfeasance, incompetence and/or neglect of duty pursuant to Article IV, Section 7 of the Florida Constitution. I presented the information regarding the time line of discovery of the problems by the board along with other procedures that were disregarded by administration. IT did NOT take your school board long to debate this issue, before a 5-0 vote was taken to refer the situation to the Governor for review. In other words, your school board voted unanamously to ask the Governor to review TAP documents and evidence to render a decision to suspend the Superintendent of Lake County Schools.
Board Members were distraught over the Superintendent's response to the two TAP limited scope reviews (mini-audits in layman terms) by the School Board Auditor, Mr. Steve Wolkomir. The Superintendent did NOT admit to any wrong doing and stated that board passed the budget and had the information to make decisions. As you can see from the Time Line attached, this is clearly NOT the case and for those of you interested in obtaining and reading the 60 plus pages of the two limited scope reviews, you will also read that the Superintendent's statements are clearly not accurate. The RSM McGladery audit on the Control of Positions clearly outlines the case for the School Board of Lake County.
In other school board news, the School Board voted 5-0 to place a resolution opposing the Niagara Water Bottling Company into our public record. Your School Board voted to support the Lake County Board of County Commissioners and other municipalities in Lake County. I would like to thank Commissioner Renick for coming to our meeting this evening to support our resolution. Ray Goodgame, Clermont City Councilman also deserves my thanks for his leadership on the Clermont City Council to oppose the Niagara Water Bottling Company.
Please contact me by e-mailing me at: [email protected] or you can call me at 352-874-4741.
Thank you being interested in our Lake County Schools. We ARE AN "A" rated SCHOOL DISTRICT!
Sincerely,
Cindy Barrow
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from the Daily Commercial by David Donald
published: Tuesday, August 05, 2008
Board looks to governor to remove Cowin
Board members unsatisfied with Cowin's response to TAP review.
DAVID DONALD
Staff Writer
TAVARES - The Lake County School Board wants Gov. Charlie Crist to comment on Superintendent Anna Cowin's actions regarding the district's teacher bonus program.
But with only three months left in Cowin's term, it's hard to say whether the governor would remove her from office for spending $618,000 of the district's money on the Teacher Advancement Program (TAP) without board approval, board members said.
"That's for the governor to decide," said board chairman Larry Metz. "All we can do is provide the facts.
Cowin, who skipped Monday's meeting, was in Tallahassee said Deke Deloach, Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources. She could not be reached for comment.
The governor's office can remove an elected official if it finds that person responsible for misfeasance, malfeasance or incompetence, said Steve Johnson, school board attorney.
Board member Scott Strong said sending the information to Crist wouldn't hurt and that it would help put the TAP issue behind them.
"The greatest casualty of this has been the time taken away from doing the children's business," he said.
After the school board auditor's review found Cowin added three schools to TAP without board consent, she was given a month to defend her actions in a written report.
Cowin submitted that report to board members at last week's school board meeting.
Board members say Cowin's report didn't address their concerns. The report did little to dissuade them from asking the governor's office to look at the audits and reviews conducted on the program and Cowin's actions.
"It went in the complete opposite direction of what I thought it should have," Metz said
Instead of admitting her mistakes and taking responsibility for her actions, she blamed the board, he said.
In her report, Cowin denied any wrongdoing and said the school board approved the spending on TAP. She said the board members discontinued a successful program at the expense of Lake County students.
Board member Cindy Barrow, who began asking questions about TAP earlier this year, said that according to her timeline, money was spent adding three teacher's assistants to three schools after the board approved the final budget.
"We did not rubber stamp this as purported by the superintendent," Barrow said. "It's clear that we have criteria that meet malfeasance," Barrow said.
Cowin also raised the hackles of the Lake County Education Association, the teacher's union, during a press conference last week when she said the union tried to derail TAP because it's against compensating teachers for their success.
B Grassel, the executive director of the association, said the union held off on filing any grievances against the superintendent because of the good relationship it had with the school board.
But after the school chief's comments, the Florida Education Association is looking into legal options, Grassel said.
The association opposed TAP because teachers were evaluating teachers -- which violates teacher contracts and must be negotiated.
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from the Orlando Sentinel (Note: the regular reporter, Tanya Caldwell, was not there. Another reporter wrote the following article...)
Board tells Crist it wants Cowin out
Denise-Marie Balona | Sentinel Staff Writer
August 5, 2008
TAVARES - Lake County School Board members can't wait three months for Superintendent Anna Cowin's term to expire. They want the controversial leader gone now -- and will ask the governor to remove her from office.
Board members voted unanimously Monday evening to send Gov. Charlie Crist a binder cataloging how they think Cowin has acted unprofessionally and neglected her duties. They argued she should be ousted for her most recent misstep alone -- allegedly misusing public funds.
Two audits in the past few months blame Cowin for spending about half a million dollars to advance a teaching program last year that the board shut down in March.
The board has accused her of sneaking extra money for it into the 2007-08 budget without its knowledge.
"I have nothing to be ashamed of and nothing to be worried about," she said Monday night after the meeting, which she did not attend.
She called the School Board's action "another attempt to try and discredit the very good program that we had for our children."
Crist can suspend her if there's evidence of misfeasance, malfeasance or incompetence, officials said.
"If this does not rise to the level of misfeasance or malfeasance, they just ought to take it out of the law," said board member Jimmy Conner, one of Cowin's most vocal critics. "More than anything, it is a horrendous violation of the public's trust."
The program Cowin wanted to grow, the Teacher Advancement Program, or TAP, was designed to improve and keep teachers with training and bonuses.
Top-ranked TAP teachers could earn an additional $4,000 to $6,000.
A $21 million federal grant was supposed to help fund TAP. It was going to pay for one TAP school last school year, seven this coming year and up to 10 schools by 2012.
Board members have said Cowin added three elementary schools to the program prematurely and used about $485,000 of the district's money to do it.
Another $133,000 in district funds was used for teacher bonuses.
Although some officials doubt Crist will dump Cowin months before she is scheduled to leave office, they said she should be held accountable.
"I think we have enough information that his [Crist's] department will make an intelligent decision," said board member Scott Strong.
An appointed superintendent is scheduled to take over Nov. 18 -- for the first time in 30 years.
Denise-Marie Balona can be reached at [email protected] or 352-742-5928.
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This was an earlier article in the Daily Commercial describing the Board's unhappiness with Cowin's response to the TAP audit
published: Sunday, August 03, 2008
School Board unhappy with Cowin response
DAVID DONALD
Staff Writer
TAVARES -- Superintendent Anna Cowin's written response explaining why Lake County School District money was spent on a program without board approval didn't go far enough, board members say.
"It did not have any new information," said board Chairman Larry Metz. "I was hoping she would admit her mistakes and move forward, but she decided to dig in and push back."
The school board plans to discuss Cowin's report Monday and decide whether to recover the money or call on Gov. Charlie Crist to get involved.
After reviewing the program earlier this year, the board's auditor said Cowin was culpable for spending more than $600,000 of the district's money to add three new schools to a teacher incentive program without board approval.
If Cowin had waited until next year, money from an existing grant could have been available to add those schools, board members have said.
In her report, Cowin vehemently denies the auditor's claim.
"Nowhere in the audit is it shown that this office has done anything wrong, and I personally am aware of no wrongdoing in this office," wrote Anna Cowin, in her report to the board. "It is correct to say that these funds were expended. It is incorrect to say they were expended without the school board's approval."
Whether Crist could get involved or if the board can recover the money spent on the now-defunct program is not known.
Metz said board members would look to board attorney Steve Johnson to the potential outcome of each option.
With less than four months left in Cowin's term, it is not likely the governor would remove the superintendent from office, school officials said.
"The bar is set very high for removing an elected official," said Metz. "One way or the other we need to bring closure on this issue."
