Editor, Gettysburg Times:
As a town resident recently
wrote to you, Littlestown does have four roads in and out. I invite all of the
district’s citizens to travel those roads, attend our next board meetings
and return home to analyze what they experience. Whether “import”
or native, agreeable or disagreeable, all citizens deserve a welcome and an
opportunity to express their opinion and ask their questions.
As a Board member, I am
driven by one simple principle: the voting public has elected me to represent
their interests and be an advocate for excellence in education, effective administration
of district resources and wise fiscal management of the taxpayers’ dollars.
I will not cease to think and behave in that manner.
Our public financial records
contain many errors. The three citizen taxpayers who made their presentation
in May are not the only people who realize this. No amount of rhetoric to the
contrary can change the facts - an inspection of those records clearly confirms
that the district’s accounting, as displayed in the financial statements
presented to the Board and the public in monthly minutes, is neither accurate
nor complete. I doubt that anyone would keep their money in any bank that was
found to keep their records in such a fashion.
Only after Deborah Friedman
strongly confronted the Board at the April study session about wrong figures
for cafeteria fund balances did the district correct those numbers. Many citizens
have witnessed my own attempts to correct obviously incorrect minutes as they
are routinely voted down by my fellow Board members.
We all have been witness
to media reports of some companies in corporate America falling prey to faulty
bookkeeping. Problems at the local level are just as significant as the financial
problems faced by big business. It is imperative that the Board receive accurate
financial information. Without that accuracy, we open the district to criticism
and questioning by the public. It is not only the financial foundation that
is in jeopardy, despite assertions to the contrary, but also the soundness of
our entire educational program that rests on this foundation.
It is up to the citizens
of this district to demand a halt to these shoddy practices and see to it that
our posterity does not suffer due to carelessness today. Thomas Jefferson said
it well many years ago when he helped to create our great system of government:
“In a democracy ... if one does not protest a wrong, one gives consent
to it.” For my part, I will not give my consent.
Eleanor Dehoff
Board member
Littlestown Area School District
Printed in the Gettysburg Times, July 15, 2002.