Just call it Balti-PHUCKED...

Good intent not enough to save city schools

Originally published Feb 27, 2004

by Michael Olesker (Baltimore Sun columnist)


IN THEIR endless hour of humiliation, give the deep thinkers in the
Baltimore schools this much: Their road to ruin was sometimes paved
with noble intentions. They knew how children had been cheated, first
one way and then another, and they tried to overcompensate. The only
thing they lacked was the ability to count.

They knew about years when children were deprived of a decent
education, by reason of color and of economics, and they knew about
the follow-up years when kids who didn't deserve it were passed
through the system. It was called social promotion. It amounted to a
wink of complicity. Some were passed to get them out of teachers'
hair, and others were passed in some misguided sense of pity.
Ultimately, they gave kids diplomas. But they robbed them of a future.

And then came the final overcompensation: After years of pretense, the
deep thinkers said it was time to put all these underachievers into
summer school, thousands of 'em, and stop imagining they were being
helped by institutional fraud.

"Forty thousand kids in summer school," state Sen. Nathaniel McFadden
said, in a brief pause in the current chaos. "Forty thousand, and
millions and millions of dollars going to pay for it over the years."

For McFadden, the city's Senate leader, this is personal. He is a City
College graduate who later ran a scholarship program at Lake Clifton
High. His children graduated from City and Northern. He has seen the
schools at their best, and their worst.

"Everybody wanted to do the right thing," he said, his tone soft and
incredulous, "but nobody on North Avenue had any sense of
accountability. You had people working on North Avenue, principals and
assistant principals, who were moved from one school to another
because their schools were failing and nobody knew what to do with
these folks. So finally, they were dropped onto North Avenue because
they had contracts and there was no place else to put them.

"And you had bureaucrats reacting to instructions from CEOs -- but
there was no constant. It was stop, start, stop, start, different
people running the show. And then all these kids, all at once, being
told they had to go to summer school. The desire was the right one.
You want to help these kids finally catch up."

By "these kids," McFadden was going beyond the immediate. He was
reaching across the years, recalling generations of families who never
found comfort in the schools, and the desire to finally make it up to
them.

"But you have all of these kids in summer school," he said, "and you
find out there's no money set aside for summer school and the city's
footing the bill instead of individual families paying for it. Used to
be, every family had to pay $125 for summer school. On top of that, we
had the city paying for lunches instead of using federal money that's
available -- because nobody on North Avenue bothered to find out that
the federal money was available."

Mayor Martin O'Malley remembered the crossroads moment.

"Summer school, sure," he said. "We were all waving pom-poms when we
announced the summer school initiative. I remember standing there with
[state school Superintendent] Nancy Grasmick and [then-city CEO]
Carmen Russo. I said, 'Can we afford this?' I was told, 'Oh, sure.' On
the face of it, it looked like a good thing. It made sense. We just
couldn't pay for it."

When Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. first announced this week he would not
accept the school financial bailout plan, he opened by saying the
city's 91,000 kids "are my responsibility." It sounded like the right
mix of politics and parenting. Then, a moment later, he noted, "We all
have responsibility for our children in the city." A few sentences
later: "This is a partnership. ... All parties are working together to
save this system. ... Everybody's joined together to resolve this
issue."

And then, flanked by O'Malley, by Grasmick, by the new city school
CEO, Bonnie Copeland, and by several legislators, Ehrlich added: "I
have a lot of friends behind me here. All of them are Democrats, I
think. It's not personal, it's not partisan. It's an attempt to do
what should have happened years ago."

A small observation: Those who flanked Ehrlich took pains to make the
same point, that everyone's working together. It sounds nice, this
notion of teamwork in a moment of crisis. As it happens, it also gives
everybody political cover. Question: If they're working together now
-- what, exactly, were they doing before this?

We know what they have not done: provide a first-rate public
education. Sometimes their intentions were noble, and sometimes not.
But we are past the time of excuses now. Continued failure, and nobody
gets cover from this one.

Former school worker indicted

by Tanika White (Baltimore Sun Staff)

Originally published March 13, 2004


A former Baltimore school employee accused of stealing more than
$200,000 from the financially struggling system was arrested on
federal charges yesterday and then indicted by a city grand jury.

Lewis Edward Williams, 61, of Pikesville, was responsible for
collecting payments from groups that periodically rent school space,
prosecutors say. From April 2002 through August 2003, they say,
Williams deposited a significant portion of those payments -about
$220,000 - into a checking account he opened at Mercantile Bank under
the name L.E. Williams Enterprises.

Prosecutors say Williams then wrote personal checks, moving money out
of the account to buy two cars and pay off debt, among other things.

City and school officials quickly called a news conference to say that
the discovery of the loss was a signal that new financial controls
were having results - and not an indication that the system's
financial problems were caused by widespread theft.

Investigators for U.S. Attorney Thomas M. DiBiagio found Williams
yesterday in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., where he was placed under arrest
and charged with bank fraud.

Williams, a former prison warden who retired in October after more
than eight years with the schools, was apparently in Florida on
vacation.

Vickie LeDuc, a spokesman for DiBiagio, said that Williams was
released on bond and told to return to Maryland for arraignment in
federal court Friday.

The school system's financial crisis, which set off a tug of war weeks
ago between Mayor Martin O'Malley and Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.,
appears to have provoked a similar struggle between the federal and
state prosecutors.

Hours after DiBiagio's office released news of Williams' arrest, State
Prosecutor Stephen Montanarelli announced that a city grand jury had
indicted Williams for stealing school money.

Montanarelli said when he told federal prosecutors Thursday night that
he would be bringing an indictment yesterday, they asked him to defer
to their charges. He refused.

"This is a state case," he said. "It involved state taxpayers' money."

The federal bank fraud case makes the victim Mercantile, Montanarelli
said, because the bank is responsible for repaying the school system.

In the state's case, he said, the school board and the taxpayers are
the victims. "I don't want to make it a political case," he said. "I
don't want to argue with the U.S. attorney. ... But I think the state
has a superior interest here. They're looking at bank fraud. I'm
looking at the theft of schools funds."

Montanarelli said Patricia C. Jessamy has waived her right as the
city's state's attorney to prosecute Williams first.

Williams' arraignment on the state charges is scheduled for June 3.

At yesterday's news conference, the school system Chief Executive
Officer Bonnie S. Copeland and O'Malley said they are serious about
ensuring fiscal integrity in an organization that has been battered
recently for years of overspending and mismanagement resulting in a
$58 million deficit. "We will not tolerate anyone taking money away
from the children in Baltimore City," Copeland said.

Copeland said she received information about possible embezzlement in
February and "immediately" reported it, triggering the investigation.

"New accountability is coming here to North Avenue," O'Malley said,
referring to school headquarters. "What has occurred in our school
system in the past is unacceptable."

Copeland said the school system - with assistance from O'Malley - is
working on developing new controls for its financial and management
systems to prevent such crimes.

"Although the current deficit is the result of overspending, primarily
on academic programs," O'Malley said, "when you have a lack of
internal controls, you open the door that someone might take advantage
of that situation."

Prosecutors say that as a facilities coordinator, Williams granted
permission for groups to use school facilities for such activities as
sports contests or church events, set up rent schedules and collected
payments. "There were no checks and balances on him," Montanarelli
said.

Although the city officially owns school buildings, Copeland said the
schools are permitted to collect revenue off short-term leases. Over
the past four years, such leases have generated yearly revenues
ranging from $60,000 to more than $200,000 - suggesting that as much
could have been stolen as was turned over to the school system.

In April 2002, prosecutors allege, Williams created his Mercantile
account to deposit checks made out to the school system.

A federal affidavit says that Williams admitted to using the money to
buy two cars and other personal items, such as two watches totaling
about $12,000, and to pay off debt.

Court records show that he filed for bankruptcy in November 1995 and
that he has at least one federal tax lien against him.

The state prosecutor said he is pursuing at least six other
investigations into school finances but has found no other evidence of
criminal activity. "You have to understand mismanagement is not a
crime," Montanarelli said.