Seattle School Board President Steve Sundquist said Friday the board is considering firing Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson or buying out her contract in light of a report's findings that she didn't do more to stop rampant misuse of public money in a district contracting program.
Seattle Times staff reporters
Seattle School Board President Steve Sundquist said Friday the board is considering firing Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson or buying out her contract after a report found she didn't do more to stop rampant misuse of public money in a district contracting program.
In an appearance before The Seattle Times editorial board, Sundquist said the findings in the newly released report "certainly undermine my confidence in the effectiveness of the management."
Sundquist declined to comment when asked if the school board was in buyout discussions with Goodloe-Johnson, but said she is working with an attorney.
"All options are on the table," Sundquist said.
Goodloe-Johnson could not be reached for comment. School staff say she is with her mother, who is hospitalized.
Sundquist and board member Michael DeBell expressed outrage over the loss of up to $1.8 million in questionable expenses, saying their concerns included a finding in the report that district employees did not believe they could report problems to superiors without reprisals.
DeBell called it a "culture" problem.
Sundquist said the board likely would announce at a public meeting Wednesday its decision regarding the superintendent and Chief Financial and Operations Officer Don Kennedy, Goodloe-Johnson's hand-picked choice for the job.
In a report released Friday morning, Seattle lawyer Patty Eakes concluded that Goodloe-Johnson and Kennedy had limited knowledge of irregularities in the small-business contracting program primarily aimed at helping companies owned by women and minorities.
Eakes, a former King County prosecutor, also found no evidence that anyone told the superintendent of their concerns about the program or its manager, Silas Potter, beyond an unfavorable review of the program in 2009 that led the district to reprimand Potter and strip him of part of his authority to award contracts.
Still, Eakes concluded that because Goodloe-Johnson knew about that report, she should have done more to ensure that the program was properly supervised.
Goodloe-Johnson, Eakes said, trusted Kennedy to oversee the program, and Kennedy delegated oversight responsibility to Fred Stephens, the former executive director of facilities.
That led Kennedy to miss warning signs that Potter was misusing district funds, Eakes' report said. Stephens, she said, failed to oversee Potter despite "numerous warning signs that additional oversight was warranted."
Eakes was hired by the district in December to determine management's role in problems with the small-business program.
Her report follows a special investigation by State Auditor Brian Sonntag's office that turned up $1.8 million in payments by the small-business program that provided little or no public benefit. The office's activities are also the subject of a secret criminal investigation by the King County Prosecuting Attorney's Office.
DeBell said Friday the program strayed from its mission to boost the pool of qualified contractors and provide long-term financial benefits to the district.
"It became instead a cronyist sort of operation that then, somehow, was not given the due diligence from management to address those issues," he said.
Eakes, speaking to the Times editorial board Friday, said she found that program largely benefited African American firms, and she heard from many employees that they would be accused of racism if they didn't support it.
That impression came from Potter, she said, but from Stephens as well
In her report, Eakes said she found no evidence that Potter awarded any personal-services contracts as "hush money" to silence opposition from the African-American community about school closures and the lack of minority contractor working on district projects.
"The information we received was hearsay," Eakes wrote.
She said she could find no witnesses with firsthand knowledge of those accusations.
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