Back in February 2014, during the Carlene Anderson's mishandling of the teacher's pay raise issue, I indicated that a complete financial audit of the school district's finances was in order.
Ms. Anderson's mishandling of the issue indicated that there were clearly "financial" problems.
http://sowal.com/bb/showthread.php/72876-No-Pay-Raise-in-Seven-Years-Support-Walton-County-Teachers!
If the School Board would have heeded this advice, the county tax payers would know more than they know now. Who knows what the School Board members "really know".
Now the really "bad news" has been delivered to the public, the county is in violation of the law, WCSD CFO Ms. Hobbs "conveniently" retires, and the the tax payers are left "holding the bag".
When government officials retire, they are often not required to testify to what they know during government oversight hearings. They can run, but they can not hide.
The question is, would it be wise to call for Carlene Anderson's resignation? Or, should the School Board keep her around in an effort to find out the truth?
Ms. Anderson's ongoing role in this serious matter is valuable only if she knows the truth and she possesses the ability to tell the truth.
There are
indications that Ms.
Anderson does know something. Ms. Anderson's statement at a recent school board meeting indicates that this problem was known for a period of time.
Ms. Anderson's statement below was published in the Northwest Daily News:
“It’s deeper than one year, what happened,” said Superintendent Carlene Anderson
Interesting, "deeper than one year", it appears that Ms.
Anderson might should have shared the details of "what happened" with the public a long time ago in an effort to prevent the
county from violating state law.
Or, are we to believe that the WCSD and its "officers" are above the law?
Maybe Ms. Anderson could have acted like a real "chief executive" and made the difficult decisions to maintain the county's compliance with the law.
Now that the "cat is out of the bag",
time will only tell if the School Board does the right thing by performing a forensic audit, or simply covers up the whole issue by relying on a "Mickey Mouse" version of a "free" financial audit provided by the Florida State Auditor General.
The other option for WCSD officials will be for Ms. Anderson and the School Board to throw Ms. Hobbs "under the bus" and blame her for everything. But, there is a hitch in that plan.
It is widely known within the WCSD and the School Board that Ms. Anderson is a reasonably capable "manager", therefore,
anything that Ms. Hobbs did in her role as CFO was surely orchestrated by Ms. Anderson and done with Ms. Anderson's full knowledge, support, and approval.
A forensic audit of WCSD finances is in order, the School Board Members need to get on with it.