Bravo, Councilman Donley. Somebody needed to say something.

At last, Ms. Gordon and I agree on something.

Vice Mayor Donley and the Council must hold those in charge of our school system accountable for their actions. The mismanagement of CIP funds is but one of a series of questionable and very troubling financial practices within ACPS. Contracts to individuals and programs with ties to the Superintendent should be scrutinized by the Council. The recently unearthed, ethically questionable, and potentially illegal practice of providing significant contributions to sheltered tax annuity accounts for members of ACPS senior staff, including the Superintendent, should also fall under the glare of the Council. ACPS is a school system which is too small to justify such outrageous expenditures even if the funding were handled appropriately. It is about time Mr. Donley and the Council gave the school system a proper dressing down about it's finances and the direction in which our schools are headed. Potential candidates should also take note of the disorder within our school system and make it one of their top priorities to address should they be elected in the fall. As Mr. Donley stated, the "mismanagement begins at the top." It is time to finally address this and demand a change starting at the very top of the pile.

There's a problem: while ACPS receives the vast majority of its funding from the City, it is not controlled by the City. Council has no say over how ACPS spends its money; only the separately elected School Board does. Council doles out out the funds but cannot control its expenditure. If you want to change that, go down to Richmond and convince the General Assembly to eliminate the elected School Board and go back to having the Council appoint the Board. Lots of luck with that.

As a former School Board member and a 20 year ACPS parent, I am truly horrified and dumbfounded that this situation was allowed to occur. Where on earth where was the School Board during all of this? Haven't they been receiving monthly financial reports? If so, have they been reading them? Who is running the school system? What was once a truly fine public school system seems to be now in very troubled waters . Although Mr. Donley and I have had our disagreements in the past, I am totally in concurrence with him on this issue. While I was on the Board, I firmly believed that the Board alone was the responsible party for managing the school system and the Board had very strict rules and oversight concerning the transfer of funds from one budget item to another, especially in the CIP. However the seeming abrogation of the current School Board of what should be their duties has led to a troubling forfeiture of those duties. There seems to be a major disconnect between the School Board and what is actually happening in our schools on a day to day basis. Attention must be paid.

I just returned from the joint worksession between the School Board and the City Council, and the question about this money and payment of annuities into tax free shelters was not answered adequately if at all. The new Chief Financial Officer for the Schools said safegurads and new practices were being put in place. Art Peabody siad that the School board must take responsibility for thes failures, but pointed out that the school board went from budgets that did not "track" (meaning that numbers were not consistent) to budgets that now get commodations from several ratings agencies, and that independent agencies hae looked at the discrepancies in voucher payments for constructions. Charles Wilson said that the annuity payments are contractual and part of contracts that are negotiated with senio administration and save money (33%) as opposed to straight salary. I hope they are part of smart negotiations, but I do think that the whole issue should be looked into further by council, and determine if any of the allegations are true. I do also remember hearing that these payments started under Rebecca Perry and they are at the discretion of the the Superintendent. Any conerns should be quickly addressed and cleared up, which they were not this evening.

Let us not forget that ratings agencies also gave high ratings to subprime mortgage bonds. The nod of a rating agency should not be the lone gauge of whether the practices within ACPS are ethical within the confines of a public agency. And these "independent agency" reviews cost us even more money on top of any discrepancies. What is the justification for providing the annuity payments for only senior staff? If it is a cost saving venture, then why not offer these annuity payments throughout the district? If it is a matter of attracting employees, again, why not offer it throughout the district? Are we to believe that ACPS only wants to attract top-notch administrators with these practices but do not feel they should seek to attract top-notch teachers who actually work daily with our students? And what have these payments produced? Are the ends justifying the means? The Superintendent is paid a base salary of just over $244,000. The Superintendent also receives an annuity payment of $40,000 and a monthly car allowance of $650. That is $291,800 spent on one position within a PUBLIC school system which has only one high school, a high school which continues to fail to make adequate yearly progress under the current Superintendent! Increased responsibility and accountability within an agency merits a higher salary, what it does not merit is an entirely different payment system unavailable to others within the agency. If Council's hands are tied, hand it to voters.

Ms. Naven & Mr. Anderson: If you want to change the current situation, the solution is theoretically simple -- convince the members of the General Assembly representing Alexandria and the City Council to propose reinstating an appointed school board. Getting it through the General Assembly may be a bit more difficult, since the Council and other elected officials seem to spend much of their time bashing the Gov., Lt. Gov., and Assembly Speaker -- all of whose support they need to pass legislation. That may be a reason much of the City's proposed legislation went down, and has historically gone down, in flames.

Please keep in mind that even an appointed School Board is a state board, not a local one. Council could add or subtract the school system's budget bottom line but would still not have a line item veto so to speak.