LAWRENCE — Allegations of questionable spending practices and financial mismanagement have led to the demise of the city's last three school superintendents.
First James Scully, then Mae Gaskins, and now Wilfredo Laboy have all departed in disgrace in the past 13 years.
For Scully, it was his decision to buy $3,000 laptops for School Committee members and extravagant spending on Lawrence students — including bagpipes, ice skates, classroom murals and canoes — that hastened his ouster in mid-1997.
Three years later, the School Committee fired Gaskins for giving lavish contracts totaling $1 million to a team of outside consultants, including her sister and a longtime friend and apartment mate. But what irked them even more was the taxpayer money she spent on her friend's stash of Cape Cod potato chips, body oil, new furniture, and wining and dining her family and friends at expensive North Shore restaurants.
Laboy has been dogged for years by criticism of irresponsible squandering of state education money. It began with unsuccessful attempts to bill the city for a remote starter for his city-leased sport utility vehicle and running boards so his wife could more easily board the SUV.
But unlike Scully and Gaskins — whose wasteful spending only cost them their jobs — Laboy has his freedom to worry about. Prosecutors for the Essex County District Attorney's Office say Laboy's transgressions involved stealing public money — including the use of School Department personnel and resources to install electrical wiring and set up a personal computer in his home, fix up his house, and chauffeur his grandchildren and son around.
"If you've got Jesse James as a superintendent, there's nothing you can do," quipped former Andover School Superintendent Kenneth R. Seifert.
But Seifert said he is both shocked and appalled at the nature of the criminal allegations that encircle Laboy, an administrator who was handpicked by the state in 2001 to lead the schools after the two previous superintendents were fired over their misspending.
"It boggles one's imagination to think that those kinds of things can happen," said Seifert, who got a firsthand look at how fiscally fouled up Lawrence's education system was as its acting superintendent between the firing of Scully in mid-1997 and the hiring of Gaskins in mid-1998.
Seifert said he is more troubled that the system of financial checks and balances locally and statewide apparently has worsened over the decade since he completed his work.
That the city is on the verge of having fired its last three superintendents is unprecedented in Massachusetts, he said.
"How does it happen if you had two or three superintendents in a row getting into that kind of trouble?," Seifert asked. "Usually, when something like this happens, a community responds and begins to repair a system that has fallen apart.
"Wouldn't you assume that a town would go there and say, 'We will not do that again'? In 40 years of education, I have never seen anything like it."
Seifert blames state officials and the local School Committee for allowing the fiscal management of the city's education system "to get so far out of whack."
"I do not know of anyone in the state of Massachusetts who has a school district of six square miles who had a limousine and a chauffeur," he said, referring to Laboy's well-publicized driving privileges. "Who approved that?"
School Committee should share blame
Former Lawrence School Committee member Ralph R. Carrero suggested that a lack of financial oversight by recent committees may have allowed a flawed system riddled by financial mismanagement to escalate into a corrupt one.
"If you allow one person to make decisions without oversight, mistakes are made or you have the situation you have now with a runaway school system," said Carrero, who witnessed the fiscal troubles that cost Scully and Gaskins their jobs while serving on the committee from 1993 to 2001.
Carrero recalled reluctantly voting for Scully's dismissal "to maintain local control."
"The situation Jim Scully faced back then was minor compared to now, and there was never any discussion about a criminal situation or indictments," he recalled. "We were placed in a situation if we didn't act upon the firing of the superintendent at the time, the (state) Department of Education was prepared to take us to court to take control of the school system."
Carrero supported Gaskins, but was critical of her spending on consultants and called for a review of all city contracts. Yet he blamed the Education Reform Act of 1993, which stripped school committees of their right to approve contracts.
Although the law weakened School Committee oversight powers, he said the committee still had a reliable system of checks and balances in place enabling members to detect Gaskins' questionable spending practices.
Carrero was one of three School Committee members of a standing finance subcommittee which met several times a month to review bills that came through the superintendent's office. Members would review and sign off on each bill, a tedious task that could take three to four hours.
"That subcommittee was essential to make sure there was accountability," he said. "If you don't have a watchdog who ensures the expenditures are being done appropriately in the budget, you have no accountability."
"It appears that the committee may have been abolished or taken out of the process. It appears that the relationship (Laboy) had with the School Committee kept deteriorating to the point he was gaining more and more power, and the School Committee was rendered helpless."
Carrero said it would restore accountability if the School Committee reactivated the finance subcommittee, particularly since the school budget has grown from $97 million when he was on the committee to $187 million today.
A few have questioned Laboy's spending practices over the years, but "a lot of it has fallen on deaf ears, I believe," Carrero said. "I guess people were fearful of their jobs, and it (the administration) became a dictatorship."
A lack of transparency
School Committee members in recent years have complained about how Laboy hampered their work by blocking access to public records, including fiscal information.
Because of "the lack of transparency" in the schools, "this superintendent was more or less free to do what he wanted to do," said Jim Stergios, executive director of the Pioneer Institute, a public policy research group that has been critical of the administration of the city's schools, particularly Laboy.
Given the city's poor track record in managing educational funds — which are largely funded by state taxpayers — Stergios said the School Department should be required to post all expenditure data online so it is easily accessible.
"After seeing what's going on there, I don't think the citizens of Lawrence deserve any less than to have access to real time data," he said. "You want the money to go to the schools — you don't want it to be wasted on other things like it has."
Recently, Stergios has questioned the wisdom of the state Legislature in approving a financial relief plan for Lawrence that would enable it to borrow $35 million to balance its budget.
"One of the things we feel is missing is that the state accountability for the school system has been essentially dismantled," he said, noting that communities across the state are paying 69 percent of the costs of Lawrence city government and 98 percent of its education costs.
Stergios believes one of the solutions to solving mismanagement of the city's education money is to view city finances in their entirety.
"I think there's a bigger envelope for this whole question, which is about how the state has interacted with Lawrence for a long period of time over the school side and the city side (of government)," he said. "It calls for taking the city's finance office and the school finances and collapsing them. That would be a huge step forward."
While the state has invested millions of dollars in trying to improve the city's education system, including a $110-million high school, the state has neglected to ensure the money has been spent wisely, according to Frank McLaughlin, president of the Lawrence Teachers Union and an educator who has taught at the high school for three decades.
"They provided the money, but there was no professional management," he said. "For a state that screams about accountability in education, they ignore the fiscal crisis in Lawrence. It's their money, but they didn't watch their money."
McLaughlin said state education officials were so eager to install Laboy as superintendent that they ignored warning signs from before he came to Lawrence.
Leadership of the American Federation of Teachers-Massachusetts had shared their concerns about Laboy with former state Education Commissioner David Driscoll. State education officials didn't listen, and continued to ignore concerns after Laboy's arrival.
"There's been nothing but problems for 10 years," McLaughlin said. "Three years ago, we (Lawrence Teachers Union) voted 98 percent 'no confidence.' Nothing happened."
Leadership void
McLaughlin believes there is a serious void in a city education system so fraught with problems that the School Committee "is in way over their heads," and ineffective in dealing with the numerous problems.
That's why he is advocating for an appointed School Committee over an elected one. He suggested looking at various models around the state, including the appointed School Committee in Boston. The state should play a role in this, he said, because it's largely state money that is running the city and the schools.
JC Considine, spokesman for state Education Commissioner Mitchell Chester, said state education officials "are monitoring" the Laboy situation. But Chester declined to be interviewed about the situation in Lawrence.
Despite the district's problems, Seifert said there are enough "urban missionaries" toiling in the Lawrence schools to turn the tide of poor administrative leadership, with the state's commitment.
"They've got some very fine teachers. They've got some very fine administrators," he said.
Seifert sees an opportunity to develop a model for improving an education system "by turning around one of the worst situations in the state."
"I think some good leadership, some good accountability and a vision or two would not be a bad start," he said. "But you do need structure in place like a well-run business — budgetary procedures, budgetary accountability."
Seifert said it will be key for the state to demand a specific financial plan on how the Lawrence schools and local government will be run before approving any funding for the city.
"They just received $35 million in bailout, so the state should be asking 'Could we see your business plan?'" he said. "I think it's a fair question. When you go to a local bank and say 'I want $50,000 to open up a new business,' the chief banker asks 'Can you give me some kind of business plan?' That's what it's going to take if we're ever going to be able to turn things around."
Tracing the downfall of Laboy's predecessors
James Scully
1987: Scully named superintendent.
1990: Lawrence High accreditation placed on warning status.
June 13, 1996: Scully gives School Committee members $3,000 laptop computers, leading to charges he is wasting education reform money on frills while failing to resolve festering problems in the schools.
September 1996: New England Association of Schools and Colleges issues scathing report on Lawrence High.
Nov. 18, 1996: State education officials scold Scully for "mindless" spending and threaten state takeover of schools.
March 13, 1997: Lawrence High formally stripped of accreditation.
June 12, 1997: State audit blasts Scully for "questionable" spending on items such as bagpipes, skating lessons and canoes.
July 10, 1997: Scully placed on paid leave.
July 31, 1997: Talks to buy out Scully's $115,000-a-year contract collapse.
Aug. 8, 1997: School Committee votes 4-2 to fire Scully on charges of mismanagement and misspending after a 10-hour meeting that ends with a vote at 4:30 a.m.
September 1997: Scully sues for "emotional stress and loss of reputation." Case is later settled for $625,000, including legal fees.
Mae Gaskins
July 1998: Gaskins takes over as Lawrence superintendent at $125,000 per year.
January 2000: Gaskins comes under fire for alleged misspending, including awarding a lucrative consulting contract to close friend Drucille Stafford. The contract pays Stafford $750 per day, plus reimbursement for expenses that range from takeout food to half the rent for the apartment she shares with Gaskins.
Jan. 24, 2000: Mayor Patricia Dowling calls on Gaskins to resign "for the good of our city."
Feb. 7, 2000: Gaskins is reportedly offered $300,000 settlement if she will leave quietly; she refuses the offer.
Feb. 28, 2000: School Committee votes 5-2 to fire Gaskins, based on 10 charges, including hiring her sister as a consultant.
June 2000: Gaskins sues, claiming she was fired without due process and was the victim of racism. She never collected any money, according to the city attorney's office.
Source: Eagle-Tribune archives
