With Referendum Looming Manatee School Board Elects Newcomer Scott Hopes as Chair

BRADENTON – At Tuesday’s reorganization meeting, the Manatee School Board elected Scott Hopes to serve as its chair for the next 12 months. Hopes was just appointed by the governor in late July to fill a vacancy that was created when Karen Carpenter retired. First-term board member Gina Messenger was elected vice chair.

The vote took place without any drama. Outgoing vice chair John Colon nominated both members and no other nominations were made.

Hopes will inherit the very difficult job of trying to restore public trust just a few months before the district will again go to the public asking for more tax money, this time via a referendum to increase school property taxes by one mill. In November, voters agreed to a 15 year-extension of the half cent sales tax, providing the district with approximately $32-33 million in additional annual funding. The district followed that vote by issuing $150 million in additional bond debt to build new schools.

Hopes actually voted against holding the referendum to increase property taxes, which passed in a 3-2 vote (with Colon joining him in dissent), saying that he did not feel that the district had done enough to demonstrate that the additional funding was needed, or in showing the public how it would be accountable for spending the additional tax money, which would also total around $32-33 million annually.

Ironically, that would seem to make him the most credible board member in terms of selling the tax, particularly if he can follow through on proposals he’s made on ways to build trust before the referendum is held. Specifically, Hopes would like to create a citizen’s budget committee comprised of local business leaders and finance experts that would serve to critique proposed budgets, offer insights and build community buy-in as to how the district spends taxpayer money.

Ideally, it would work in tandem with the citizen audit committee to ensure that the budget is realistic, accurate and in the best interest of the community. The citizen audit committee was created in the wake of the 2012 financial scandal, in which tens of millions of dollars had been shell-gamed by then Superintendent Tim McGonegal and some members of his finance team, in order to hide a huge deficit that was later blamed on accounting errors. By knowingly misrepresenting that deficit as a surplus to the board, however, McGonegal allowed them to make financial and budget decisions without knowing the true state of the ledger.

Back then, auditing was done internally by staff who reported to McGonegal, meaning anything they found only got to board members if he chose to give it to them. As the citizen audit committee reports directly to the board, it removes this critical conflict of interest. At that time, the district also had a sales tax accountability committee that was supposed to ensure that monies from the additional half-cent tax were being spent in the way the community had been told it would be, prior to approving it. However, that board also reported to the superintendent. When it began to uncover inconsistencies, it was simply disbanded. It was some of those same committee members, however, who would ultimately work to reveal the financial misdeeds.

Hopes would have the citizen budget committee report directly to the board, the same as the citizen audit committee. The idea would be to create layers of accountability that would prevent the board from being kept in the dark about the true state of the district’s finances, as can too easily be the case if it only gets its information from the superintendent and their team.

Just last month, it was the citizen audit committee that brought an ongoing failure to rectify accounts to the board’s attention, noting that the monthly reconciliation of the district’s bank accounts had at one point been 11 months behind and is still not nearly up to date. Prior to the audit committee briefing, no one within the district had informed board members of the problem. The district's chief financial officer resigned on Friday, though she said it was "purely for personal reasons."

Hopes will have his work cut out for him. The referendum, which will cost taxpayers an additional $300,000 just to conduct, is scheduled for a special election to be held on March 20 of 2018, for which turnout is expected to be low.