Editor:
The letter from Pastor Kielley is
a sad misrepresentation of our presentation to the Littlestown School Board.
He may indeed have appropriate loyalty to Darlene Ketterman, as her pastor,
but he is the one pointing the finger specifically at Darlene, not us. Notice
that no attention was drawn to the only two board members who were treasurers
during the period we questioned. Ben Ricci and the present treasurer, Joe Bucher,
are the only board members whose names were cited because they appeared on treasurer's
reports upon which we commented.
We made no mention of the Superintendent,
Dr. McConaghy, whose duty, by board policy, it is to bring such discrepancies
to the board’s attention. But Pastor Kielley could have suggested that
Dr. McConaghy had responsibility for not catching these errors. Recognize, as
well, the obvious lack of reference to board members themselves, whose job it
is to oversee these very elements of the finances.
We challenged the school board to
investigate this matter. Why doesn’t Pastor Kielley challenge the board
as well? As for the auditors, to whom Pastor Kielley makes reference, it confounds
us, too, that they did not mention any of these problems in their audit reports.
We believe that they would surely have looked at the same documents we reviewed
ú the published board minutes ú as part of their procedures. If
not, what documents were they looking at and why is there a difference?
No, we did not highlight Darlene or accuse her of anything but Pastor Kielly
unfortunately did so in his effort to defend her. However, to the best of our
recollection, Pastor Kielley did not attend the May 21 board meeting during
our presentation. We introduced facts ú not allegations. Let Rev. Kielley
and others, but especially the board, explain the facts.
In the meantime, our assertion remains
the same: the Littlestown School Board is in no position to impose a tax hike
until it can demonstrate that it has factual knowledge of the district’s
true financial condition. As our presentation demonstrated, the board’s
own paper work disputes any claim that the board does possess such accurate
knowledge.
Terry J. Scholle
Littlestown
Printed in the Hanover Evening Sun, June 2002