When your budget is a mess — who you gonna call? A lawyer, of course.
The Portland, Maine School Committee has a mess on its hands — a budget deficit of $2.5 million.
It started out as $500,000 then grew to $1.7 million and now it’s $2.5 million. The taxpayers are outraged, the School Committee says it’s not their fault and the School Finance Director Richard Paulson resigned on Monday.
Now the School Committee has voted unamiously to hire a lawyer (at a cost of perhaps $20,000) to investigate the causes of the deficit and issue a report within 30 days.
Um, excuse me? Aren’t you folks supposed to have a handle on the budget and know why there are problems? If you don’t, are you really doing your jobs? It doesn’t take an outside expert to see that you’ve taken your eyes off the ball.
Meanwhile, the city’s finance staff will take over management of the school’s budget under an agreement worked out between the city manager and school Superintendent Mary Jo O’Connor.
O’Connor is delighted with the help. She said, “It’s absolutely necessary at this point because it’s not my area of expertise.”
Duh!
A budget deficit of $2.5 million. Yeah, I guess you could say it’s not your area of expertise all right.