PAYING
ATTENTION!
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Find
the Money for CLVS Investigation
It
is going to cost between $15,000 and $25,000 to conduct a
fraud audit at the City of Lawrence Vocational School.
David Howshan, the CLVS department head, says he wants an
investigation into the way money was spent at CLVS so
that he can be cleared of allegations of wrongdoing.
The mayor of the City, Michael Sullivan, says he wants an
investigation but needs to "find" the funds and
get approval of the City Council to do so. Most members
of the City Council have said they would like to see an
investigation as well.
So why is there still no investigation underway? Why has
no law enforcement agency been called in to make sure
criminal charges are not warranted? Why are city
officials not climbing over themselves to clean up a
media mess which is bad for the city, and possibly a
legal mess that is bad for everyone? Why is this dragging
on? What's the hold up?
Well, an understanding of the responsibilities of
everyone involved might help to clear up most of those
questions.
The City of Lawrence has established an adult vocational
school, (the CLVS) which exists legally due to a city
ordinance spelling out its mission and propose as a city
department. Its mission is to service adult residents of
the city who are in need computer skills and job
training. The director of the CLVS is to carry out the
mission of the school. The CLVS is completely separate
from the Lawrence School Department and has a board of
directors much like the Lawrence School Committee
oversees the Lawrence School Department.
Because CLVS is a city department, it is dependent on
city finds or grants that the city can secure on its
behalf. The City Council must approve any finds that go
to the CLVS. The mayor must sign off on those money
transfers. The mayor is also responsible for hiring the
director using the same process as he would hire the
police chief or the DPW director. Having hiring control
also means Sullivan has firing control. Just as Mayor
Dowling fired Carl Prussing, the former Finance director,
Mayor Sullivan has the authority to fire the CLVS
director. Before the employee can be fired however, the
City Council must hold a hearing in public and vote to
fire him as well.
Now, before the mayor can just go off firing a department
head there must be some kind of evidence to warrant his
action. There MUST, by state law and city charter, be an
internal investigation by the personnel director. In this
case the personnel director is former Mayor Lawrence
Lefebre. Right now it is his legal responsibility to be
conducting a formal investigation into all financial
transactions and all those responsible going back 3-5
years.
He does not need a directive from the mayor to do this;
he is the personnel director, it is his job as the human
resource officer for the city. But, that doesn't mean the
mayor is out of the loop. He has the legal right to order
the personnel director to begin an investigation. He also
has the legal authority to call on any law enforcement
agency he wants and ask for a criminal investigation.
The City Council has no authority to do anything at all
about this unless the mayor takes action first and fires
Mr. Howshan. What this all means is that the ball is in
Mayor Sullivan's court. Without direct action from him
the City Counil has very little authority t do anything
on this.
Mayor Sullivan can call for a fraud audit if he wants to
and put the ball in the City Council's court. If the
Council agrees to cooperate with the mayor in his request
for an audit, they would have to sit down with the budget
director and find money in the budget to pay for a
private auditing firm to come in and do the work. (Side
Note: The snow removal budget ought to have money left
over this year we didn't get much snow.)
This is how it can happen if everyone involved wants
there to be an investigation and/or a fraud audit
conducted. The key word here is "want." There
are lots of reasons any number of the people responsible
for cleaning up this mess would not want to move forward
and find out the truth, good or bad. Mayor Sullivan is
frightened of controversy and doesn't really want to deal
with this at all. The Personnel Director has been closely
aligned with Mr. Howshan politically and personally for
many years. Some members of the City Council are friends
with Mr. Howshan and some of them are afraid that there
will be political fallout for not paying more attention
to what was going on over there. Every person in the
pipeline, form instructors at the school to city hall
workers who process the paperwork are justifiably worried
about being scapegoated before all this is over.
Of course there are some City Councilors, Gil Frechette
for one, who have publicly said they "want an audit
conducted" at the CLVS. City Council President
Marcos Devers told the council last week "It is
unfair that the council is involved in this show. It is
easy to say we don't' have the money to do this. I don't
accept that from the mayor. It's easy to say that, while
we are raising salaries and the school department is
asking for 7 million dollars in addition to a level
funded budget. It's unfair. We stopped the budget in the
year 2000 because we needed a management audit. And if we
have to stop this budget this year, we are gong to stop
it if we can unless you want to be conniving and let this
thing go. We have to find the truth and to in the truth
we have to find the resource to move forward and do it
right."
This sends a powerful signal to the mayor, telling him
that "he alone" can move this forward and start
looking for the truth if he has the political will. No
matter how much political resistance there is now, once
an official audit or investigation begins the truth will
be told. The public will have justice, and Mr. Howshan
(innocent or guilty) will have a chance to answer the
charges leveled against him.
No matter how good of a mayor Mike Sullivan may be, no
matter how many great things he may be doing for the city
he has to get into the kitchen, face the heat and put out
the fire. He ran for this job, he wanted it and he had to
know it would involve more than just changing the city's
image and being a nice guy. Sullivan admits publicly that
Mr. Howshan solicited funds and worked on his campaign
for mayor, making it even more imperative that he act
swiftly to silence any criticism that he is showing
favoritism.
The ball is in your court and the fire is burning mayor,
only you can put it out.
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