Meeting slated as school district can’t pay bills
PAWTUCKET – In the aftermath of the School Committee revealing it’s struggling to pay its bills due to a money shortage, the City Council voted unanimously (8-0) Wednesday night to hold a special meeting between itself, Superintendent Patricia Royal, officials with the state Department of Education and Mayor Donald Grebien to address such issues.
Council President Terry Mercer and Finance Director Mark Stankiewicz both called the problems and a lack of communication between the city and school district “dire.”
That meeting is scheduled for next Wednesday at 6 p.m. at City Hall, though the site could change given the water infiltration issues. Should a switch be mandatory, Mercer said the alternate site would be the Jenks Middle School/Jacqueline M. Walsh School for the Performing & Visual Arts Media Center.
According to WPRI-TV, it’s Target 12 investigation team obtained documents from the city and schools showing the district has a negative balance in its capital reserve fund, which is where money is drawn to pay for building projects, etc.
That’s something the city didn’t know about until relatively recently; it’s also why Stankiewicz wrote a letter to Royal to inform her that unless that issue is addressed, Pawtucket “would no longer be able to make substantial contractor payments in order to reserve sufficient funds for normal operating expenses, including payroll,” as of April 15.
Stankiewicz sent that same letter to Mayor Donald Grebien and the council on March 14, and that was the crux of the conversation between councilors, Stankiewicz and Chief of Staff Ryan Holt on Wednesday night.
“That letter is very alarming; I thought if we didn’t do something to pull these two parties together and try to come up with some sort of cooperative
approach to handling this, we would just be burying our heads in the sand,” Mercer said just as the meeting started. “The importance and tone of that letter from Mr. Stankiewicz left us no choice but to have that meeting.”
Stankiewicz, who has only been in his position for about a year, explained the time line behind what he believes to be the cause of the school department’s issues. He told the council the district’s chief financial officer left last July, and he was replaced by another. “Unfortunately for the school department, a significant number of school personnel on the financial side left during that period which left them really strapped,” he said. “During that time, we were working with the CFO on a number of issues because it was a learning process for both of us. We had conversations, we sent emails; towards the end, we were actually meeting once a week to go over particular items.
“Then in March, unbeknownst to us, that CFO was no longer employed by the school district,” he added. “Unfortunately, we were not aware of it; we heard about it basically third-hand, and – with that – there was no direction as to who the financial team on the city side was supposed to work with on the significant issues – the audit, which was late, and the budget.
“We needed someone in charge.”
Mercer said this is no “witch hunt,” that the council just wants the city and school department to come together, communicate and resolve the problems. He also asked Stankiewicz if he believed this was a “fixable problem.
“I personally do; that was the whole reason for the letter,” he said. “Once the CFO left, we had to bring attention to this particular issue. It’s an underlying issue of the continuity of the financial process, both for the city and the school. It’s vitally important that we get folks in place who are able to conduct that business so we don’t skip a beat.
“Will we make it through the end of the year? I have every confidence that we will, but we will need to work together with the school department and the state to make sure it is done properly.”
Ward 2 Councilor Mark Wildenhain explained he loves the idea of bringing together all parties for next week’s meeting.
“We need to collaborate on fixing this problem, not sit here worrying about it to the point it becomes a disaster,” he said. Let’s fix it before it becomes that disaster. That should be the charge for all of us, but I do have some severe reservations when it comes to funding in a school department from my estimation is dysfunctional sometimes.
“I’m told sometimes when we try to interject our opinion or concerns that we should mind our own business and stay in our lane,” he continued. “Well, this is all of our business, and we should all get in the same lane so we can get it resolved.”
Ward 1 Representative David Moran referred to it as a fact-finding meeting “so we can get down to the brass facts of what’s really going on. I know we don’t want to cast stones or aspersions on certain people. My angle is I look at this as a prevention thing, and it’s more on the school side. I think we all can agree that there is an issue on the school end of it in its finance department.”
He said everyone has to work together to make sure everything is stabilized, like it was for years when Melissa Devine was at the helm and working with city CFO Joanna L’Heureux.
“I don’t have any confidence on that side right now until someone tells me, the council and the administration that the department is stabilized,” he said. “Hopefully, they’ll get a CFO who’s not going to leave after so many months; that is just so important. Until I see that, I’m not comfortable at all.
“This is crunch time, and I’m really, really nervous about what’s going on. We need to get on the same page. We can’t lose ESSER and Title I funding.”
After the meeting, Mercer said he didn’t think he learned a lot of new information.
“We just got some clarification on what generally has happened, what needs to happen and, unfortunately, what hasn’t been happening over the last eight-10 months when they were without an adequate finance department,” he said. “We know the assistant CFO was let go over the past two weeks, so for a while now, they’ve been without a CFO and a No. 2 person, so this fiscal office was in disarray by body count, not necessarily aptitude.
“They knew there were some hiccups,” he added of the department, “but just didn’t realize they were as far-reaching as they were. They couldn’t close the fiscal 23 budget, meaning the auditor couldn’t complete the audit. You can’t start to build a fiscal 25 budget until the 23 is closed.”
He also said they had to ask the Auditor General for a new deadline, and he gave that to them begrudgingly; that date is March 31.
“When it comes to the audit, it appears that everything has been taken care of, but there are always lingering audit questions,” Mercer said. “We will need somebody on the school side to be able to answer the auditor’s questions if they arise.
“The other important thing is that there needs to be somebody on the school side who becomes the point person at this moment for the school budget; that budget has to be done before our budget. Our budget by state law is built into a time frame, and we’ll need the school department’s by May. In that time frame, we also have to put out a public notice for the entire budget in The Call & Times.
“That has to be done X days out. It also has to go through two passages, so even then, you’re talking about a two-week span. All of this is very serious if it’s not addressed, and that was the intention of Mark’s letter. It may not be catastrophic, but it’s dire. If we don’t do anything, then it will go from dire to catastrophic.
“I think the school department understands that it’s dire, and that’s the reason for the meeting next week – to resolve all of it.”