I get very upset with the misinformation fed to the public by the Addison Northwest Supervisory Union school boards.
Jeffry Glassberg, chair of the ANwSU school board, should be brought up to some correct statements. Addison residents requested for the past several years the audit required by law to be provided prior to the town meeting. I called the auditors who were doing the audit and inquired why the audit was not being provided. The answer was that the data needed was not being provided so the audit could not be completed. I informed the public of this at town meeting.
Again I requested the audit this year. Addison has not had any audits to access for several years. The school board stated they could not find another firm to do the audit. I informed them that the past several years reports by the auditor firm showed an increase in accounting errors each year and perhaps this was why no audit would be considered by a new firm.
A deliberate setup in the meeting room at town meeting was created to “not provide” the audit to voters as per state law requirement and requests of the voters. Now that solved the problem. Well, up until the Agency of Education withheld the funds. I think the schools should have been shut down.
Former Superintendent Tom O’Brien should have been well aware of the accounting problems, and if he wasn’t he was at fault. If he did know about it and didn’t fess up then he was at fault. Blaming CPA Kathy Cannon for all of his wrong actions is an unfair act. Mr. O’Brien worked for us, the voters. We were directing him and he refused to comply with our direction or wishes for an audit. Where did the funds go? The audit will show us if we ever get the past five years of them to see.
ANwSU officials have the obligation to know what is going on and be on top of it. I have no confidence in them or the school boards who have been informed on multiple occasions. I feel as others all should be removed from office and new persons put in who can correctly manage our school funds, listen to the public comments, research the comments and correct matters before they get out of hand. It saves unnecessary hassle.
I am agitated with rudeness, being shouted at, threatened with a lawsuit for expressing my concerns by people who are prodigious and bias with refusal to comply with requests to follow the laws we have a right to be followed.
The town of Addison has the right to have our school treasurer perform her duties in ADDISON and keep the funds in our town. I will ask that this treasurer and our school funds return to our town for better control over the funds.
I hope to see the Agency of Education on top of ANwSu to correct the potentially illegal actions of the school boards. I fear when all is said and done, a large amount of funds will be missing as Tom O’Brien has left this mess to someone else to fix. If so, Addison voters will have to close the school, the case being there are not enough students to warrant a school for the horrible high taxes placed on our senior citizens who have no funds for tax increases unless they go without medication, heat for the winter or food.
Hoping more voters get out to meeting.
Elizabeth Armstrong
West Addison