The school district has authorized their attorney to sue the Town of Greenburgh in order to force the town to continue to pay on the illegal Westhelp Partnership Grant. The annual cost of this lawsuit will be nearly $375,000, about the same amount recently transferred from the tax certiorari account.
All the "legal" expenditures in the old deal are now in the budget. The district has never fully accounted for the $1.8 million spent on booze cruises and opera tickets. The district has never publically addressed the many illegal, unethical and dishonest expenditures it made.
So why would the district throw away another $375,000 chasing after funds it does not "need", funds it says can not be used to offset regular educational expenses, funds that have never been properly accounted for in the past? Funds, in fact that the comptroller's department has said can not legally be given by the town to the school district.
I guess this proves, once again that the Valhalla School District, is overfunded and has no regard for taxpayers money even in this bad economic time. There is no stone they will leave unturned in order to ensure an ever increasing income stream for the teacher's union. Finally, let's not forget that the school district indemnified the Town of Greenburgh against all legal actions in connection with the grant.
So what has the Valhalla School Board done about the many "problems" found by the New York State Comptroller? Here is one "problem":
Are they still paying for a benefit not provided in Mr. Wolfson's contract?
Are they still making payments without documentation?
Are they still avoiding Federal and State payroll taxes?
Has Mr. Wolfson ever turned over those documents that reveal what we are paying for, that he has no right to, under his contract?
Citing the audit report of the New York State Comptroller’s Office:
Page 6 Audit Results, paragraph #3 “The Business Administrator’s contract provided certain fringe benefits including a provision to allow him to receive life insurance valued at twice his annual salary. However, rather than choosing to be reimbursed for a term policy, the Business Administrator elected to purchase a Flexible Premium Variable Universal Life (FPVUL) policy that combined death benefit protection with the opportunity to direct the investment of net premium dollars into a broad portfolio of investment options. This selection provided him with benefits greater than provided for in his contract, resulting in unnecessary costs to District taxpayers. We estimated that from July 2001 to July 2007, the District overpaid for the Business Administrator’s life insurance premiums by $38,500. Further, the Board made these payments without obtaining proper documentation.We were unable to determine the cash surrender value or the death benefit as of June 2007, becausethe Business Administrator refused to disclose the information. Beginning in the 2005-06 fiscal year, the Business Administrator chose to have the District pay the vendor directly for his premium payments. This payment method allowed the Business Administrator to avoid the deduction of payroll taxes, which could result in the District being held liable for unpaid taxes, interest, and penalties.”
In recent years, the Valhalla School Board has been rife with personal conflicts of interest. Among these are:
A board member providing paid child care for a Valhalla administrator. In effect the employer working as an employee of the employee while overseeing the employee's contract, tenure workplace and evaluation.
A board member seeking an internship in the board office to further her resume and personal career goals. In effect, working for her employee while making decisions on the employee's contract, workplace and evaluations, while at the same time being evaluated by the superintendent of schools, her employee
A board member whose child attended private school taking money from the taxpayer's account to pay for his child's Princeton review class given at the private school.
Multiple instances of board member spouses hired as employees of the district.
Board member using their influence with coaches, athletic directors, and administrators to for the direct benefit of their child.
The Westhelp money that had direct benefits to Greenburgh residents at the expense of North Castle and Mt. Pleasant residents also put these Greenburgh residents in direct conflict with their position as trustees elected by the entire district.
The problem is that these board members do not understand what a conflict of interest is. Some think it has only to do with money. They seemingly can't understand that when their personal interest or benefit conflicts with or is influenced by their duty as a trustee of the district, that is a conflict of interest. Running to the attorneys, recusing oneself or worse not showing up for a vote on tenure or a contract is does not solve the problem. The conflict remains and everyone knows it.
The Valhalla School District is about to face yet another round of bad press. Wagons are being circled. Listen for the pat answers from the Educrat play book:
According to the Journal News Cynthia Webb's lawsuit states that Ramapo High School's English Department head, Eric Brand:
remarked that a Muslim student had "curves in all the right places" and revealed a great deal of her body because she changed before school and her clothing was therefore always in disarray;
commented that a female mock trial student ... was "supermodel material." On at least one occasion, the student asked Webb to meet her somewhere other than the English Department office because, as the student said, "Dr. Brand always looks me up and down when I go in there."
in reference to a student passing in the hallway, stated to another teacher, "If she were older and I weren't married..."
We are told that Dr. Brand is the Vahalla High School Girls Varsity Basketball Coach. The same bunch that trashed the trophies and could not get their stories straight are responsible for this hire. Should parents just wait and see how the lawsuits are settled before we jump to conclusions? After all we trust our superintendent, and our full time athletic director. They are the professionals, after all. If taxpayers can trust them with a $40 million budget, shouldn't parents have to trust them to hire the best, most qualified people to coach theese girls. You trusted them to magically clean up the contaminated land fill. You trust that the artificial turf is safe. Surely if there was any issue at all, the school administrators would not hide it from the public. Right?
You can't really fault the board of education on this one, they trust those very highly paid administrators who are so very competent and who do a wonderful job and receive tenure early.
Next year, Valhalla will spend $27,000 per student per year for every student grades K-12. Results are mediocre at best.
The state has cited the district twice in the past 3 years for illegal activities and poor fiscal policies and practices.
Only one of the three towns votes to approves the budget every year, the one town paying the least taxes.
The district budget increases are the same every year, $2 million plus, even this year with a declining enrollment.
The Budget to Budget decrease in enrollment at the Virginia Road School is 12%. With Virginia Road feeding the enrollment for the rest of the district, why is no one projecting future decreases?
With foreclosures on the increase and with the proven inability of the school board to manage its affairs, red flags should be going up as voters go to the polls.
Now we learn that it is not even necessary for residents of other districts to give a false address to send their children to Valhalla Schools. The district doesn't even confirm addresses anymore. Greenburgh 7 residents even to vote in our elections.
So is the contentious three town arrangement worth keeping? Would we be better off going our separate ways?
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