Allentown School Board elects new leaders after ‘rough year’
Forensic audit discussed; investigator hired for $175 an hour
The Allentown School Board will have a new president for the next year as the district tries to stabilize after the recent departure of another superintendent.
Audrey Mathison, a former president who acknowledged the district has had a “rough year,” was elected to the position Thursday night at the board’s annual reorganization meeting. Nancy Wilt, the board’s president for the past year, was elected vice president.
Mathison and Wilt will both serve one-year terms. Mathison was approved in a 5-3 vote over board member Patrick Palmer. Wilt beat out both Palmer and Lisa Conover in the vote for vice president. Wilt received five votes; Conover, the vice president for the past year, received three; and Palmer received one.
Mathison previously served as both board president and vice president. She was elected to the board in 2015. She is a former English teacher who served in the Parkland School District for 40 years before retiring in 2006. She was president of the teachers union when the educators hit the picket lines in 2003 for five days during contract talks.
Mathison said she felt she owed it to the community to take on the president’s role for the next year.
“It’s scary because it’s a big responsibility,” she said. “My goal is going to be to bring us together a bit more because this has been something of a rough year.”
Wilt, who is chief of staff for state Rep. Peter Schweyer, led the board as president during this past year in which former Superintendent John Stanford departed in October, less than a year into a five-year contract. Carol Birks has been serving as interim superintendent since Oct. 31.
Wilt wouldn’t comment after Stanford’s departure about whether she wanted to remain board president. At protests held by local NAACP chapters in the wake of Stanford’s exit, some community members called for her resignation.
Wilt was first elected to the school board in 2019 and served two terms as president. She has three children who graduated from ASD.
Forensic audit discussed
The board also discussed the possibility of paying EisenAmper, a Philadelphia-based auditing firm, to meet with and interview board members about a potential forensic audit at an initial cost of up to $5,000.
Conover has been calling for a 30-year forensic audit of the district’s finances following Stanford’s departure. Board member
LaTarsha Brown also voiced her support for an audit. Board member Jennifer Ortiz voiced opposition. Richard Fazio and Charles Linderman, interim business managers, told the board that a forensic audit would require more specific direction on what the auditors should examine.
The board didn’t vote on whether to proceed with hiring an auditing firm.
Linderman and Melissa Smith, executive director of school improvement and compliance, spoke about the purchase of 308 Chromebook laptops for $88,623.92 in a move that went against board purchasing policy.
The laptops were purchased for middle-school student intervention sessions with Comprehensive School Improvement Funds, which are allocated to Title I schools with the most significant academic achievement challenges. The funds needed to be used before the end of September, or the district would lose the money.
But the purchase wasn’t initially reviewed by the board, per board policy. Interim business managers discovered the purchase when they were reviewing district finances.
The board will vote at the Dec. 15 meeting on whether to approve the laptop purchase to comply with its board policy. If the board doesn’t approve the purchase, then the computers will either have to be returned or the district will have to pay the cost from its own funds to keep them.
The board also decided to hold a vote that will impact the upcoming budget at the Dec. 15 meeting. Then, members will vote on whether to “opt-out and not raise property taxes beyond the approved index of 6.3%” in the upcoming 2023-24 budget.
Personnel moves
The board voted to approve the board of directors report, which includes a contract for the district’s confidential/executive administrative assistants, starting retroactively in July 2022 and ending June 2025.
The report also included a new contract for Tom Smith, executive director of facilities services, who was originally supposed to leave the district for a new position this month. He will stay on with ASD through June 2025.
The board also hired Robert Copeland to investigate allegations regarding an ASD employee at a rate of $175 per hour and $75 per hour for transportation. When asked about the investigation, Mathison said she had no comment because she can’t speak about district personnel.
“My goal is going to be to bring us together a bit more because this has been something of a rough year.”
— Audrey Mathison, Allentown School Board president