Report blasts Sullivan West officials

By FRITZ MAYER

LAKE HUNTINGTON — A new report from the New York State comptroller’s office found that Sullivan West officials wasted taxpayers’ money, mislead taxpayers and did not have sufficient financial controls in place for the period July 1, 2003 to June 8, 2005 to effectively manage the district’s business.

The following is an excerpt of the report.

“District officials failed to adopt a comprehensive strategic plan, they mismanaged the merger and wasted millions of taxpayer dollars. From before the merger to the release of this report, the Board did not adopt a plan to identify and address the District’s financial, educational, managerial, and personnel issues. A clear example of District officials’ mismanagement of the merger is that they were aware that building occupancy levels would obviously decline dramatically when they moved pupils in Grades 7 to 12 out of the Delaware Valley and Narrowsburg schools and into the new high school (Grades 9 to 12) and the Jeffersonville-Youngsville school building (Grades 7 to 8).

“However, they did not have a plan to address what financial impact this would have on the District. Consequently, their decision to renovate the Delaware Valley and Narrowsburg school buildings — which they later closed because they did not properly address building occupancy levels and declining pupil enrollment — resulted in their wasting $12.5 million in taxpayer dollars.

“District officials submitted materials to SED that showed they knew that they would receive only 75 percent of the capital project costs in State building aid.1 However, District officials allowed taxpayers to think that this State funding would cover 95 percent of the costs of the District’s capital projects. Because District officials did not have an ongoing comprehensive plan, they did not have a financial plan to cover the additional capital project costs that they knew would not be covered by the State building aid.

“Without a comprehensive strategic plan in place, District officials also failed to address actual and projected staffing levels. Consequently, when total staffing levels increased after the merger, the District was unable to realize approximately $2.1 million in savings due to economies of scale that were identified in the merger study.”

Go to osc.state.ny.us/localgov/audits/2006/schools/sullivanw.htm to see the entire report.