Tempers Flare Over Audit of State Aid Mess-up

Former board member Neil Carlin ignited sparks at Tuesday's board of education meeting after he accused the district of withholding info about the .

Carlin claimed he was denied a Sept. 28 Freedom of Information Law request for documents related to an independent investigation of the state aid snafu by accounting firm Nawrocki Smith LLP.

“Who are we trying to protect in this venture? A mistake was made, a report was released, you all have it – the administration has it, the board of education has it – but ... the taxpayers are going to bear the brunt," he said.

After fines, the district loss totals $13 million dollars after school officials failed to submit claims for state reimbursements by the deadline. One administrator has already .

But school district attorney Eugene Barnosky said Carlin’s request was not denied but stalled, citing the need to review the documents for sensitive information that may need to be redacted.

After the meeting, Carlin said the community should know what auditors found in the investigation – an independent review mandated by the board in May – and that transparency could breed trust between the school and the community.

Barnosky also passed the buck on Carlin's FOIL request, blaming the records access officer for making the decision to withhold the documents for the time being. However, the school attorney admitted that the records officer acted “on advice of counsel.”

In a phone interview Wednesday, district clerk and records access officer Maureen O’Conner confirmed that she forwarded Carlin's FOIL request to her attorney.

"The report from the external audit had some sensitive material in it,” she said. “Tuesday I spoke with the attorneys and they did in fact have some questions of some elements of the document. They drafted a letter to Mr. Carlin and to me saying that we’ll further review the document, make sure that there’s nothing that has to be redacted.”

O’Conner said the document is currently under review by the district’s legal council.