An independent investigation finally has answers to Brockton parents’ questions. In detail, it surpasses a school committee report, an August whistleblower lawsuit and February financial review.
Long before layoffs in the spring of 2023, Brockton was once hurtling toward bankruptcy. Near insolvency in 1990 demanded debt-financed operations, a control board and special legal duties for public servants, especially Brockton’s chief financial officer.
The crisis ebbed. The law did not. It “requires that the CFO carefully monitor expenditures” and release funds in “five stages” to “prevent overspending,” the Department of Revenue wrote in 2012. After cutbacks, Brockton restored stability and dissolved the control board in 1993.
In 1998, the school committee and city council voted to consolidate finance departments. City ordinances were not updated accordingly. Just prior, Aldo Petronio started his career in the city’s finance department, then the public schools.’ Petronio worked across a bureaucratic divide. Ultimately, the illusory silos worked against him.
Pre-pandemic, “BPS faced repeated funding gaps, and year-after-year was forced to cut staff,” the report says. In 2019, the Student Opportunity Act offered “fiscal breathing room.” With the pandemic, federal funds flowed. The influx “emboldened [Superintendent Michael] Thomas to hire staff” over budget.
As social distancing shut down schools, Brockton received a state report. With it, investigators say, “DESE called Brockton out on” budgeting. Last of DESE’s 13 recommendations was a clear and comprehensive budget aligned with systemwide goals. 114 pages in, it recommends “two years of actual … expenses” in annual budgets.
Such accounting is standard practice. The FY23 budget took one step towards compliance, reporting two years of actual top-line revenues and expenses. It lacked line-item detail. Investigators concluded “Petronio simply ignored DESE’s recommendations.”
Thomas focused “on DESE’s academic recommendations” and not “financial aspects.” He disclaims himself a “numbers guy.”
Proper budgeting was one of “multiple levels of oversight” built into Brockton’s checks and balances. Had key actors “worked as designed,” then the FY23 deficit “would have been prevented” or “significantly curtailed.”
One casualty of lockdowns was a transportation contract. For 44 years, First Student provided Brockton buses, drivers, maintenance, training and insurance. Remote learning delivered a contract dispute. Brockton won a Pyrrhic victory, paying only $500,000 out of $9.5 million sought.
Thomas and Petronio were already reassessing the First Student relationship. The settlement “soured” it further. Petronio feared monopoly power explained First Student’s pricing. A conference presentation persuaded Thomas to in-source transportation.
In February 2020, the Massachusetts Association of Pupil Transportation evaluated BPS. It was meant to recommend action, but the pandemic interrupted. Investigators state MAPT made no written report.
BPS pressed forward. The process, investigators said, was “rife with poor decision making.” Petronio generated estimates for “gas, fuel and maintenance.” The fleet, he proposed, would use the city’s one mechanic.
The purchasing plan kept changing. Reliance on private vans companies remained undetermined, even when the city’s CFO and the School Committee approved $5.5 million for 64 buses.
As school reopened, Thomas said, BPS was “scrambling.” A maintenance warehouse plan fell through. Buses were parked at the Brockton Fairgrounds. On September 1, 30 bus driver jobs were open.
“Disaster” resulted. Complaints flooded in: Students weren’t picked up before or after school, some went to the wrong school and others got home late at night.
“No one was communicating with the drivers and ‘nobody knew what to do,’” according to Thomas. He fired the transportation director on day one. BPS hired three former First Student employees in a pinch. They commanded salaries over budget.
That expense was miniscule beside the cost of vans, which supplemented the new buses. All told, BPS went $8.5 million over the transportation budget. The cost drained a “circuit breaker” fund meant for special education instruction. Deputy CFO for schools Chris Correia covered the remainder with pandemic relief money.
A special needs program at the Huntington Therapeutic Day School could have used some cash. The already challenging environment had produced severe student and staff safety reports, which the principal struggled to address. Suspended by Thomas, the principal went on leave and resigned. Thomas resolved to shut down HTDS.
Broadly, “COVID-19 took a greater toll on students and staff than expected” by BPS officials. Thomas hired teachers, mentors and security staff to lower class sizes and address student behavior. Over a year, BPS added 300 full-time employees.
With a $34 million federal safety net, the district closed 2022 with a surplus. The district culture, accustomed to figuring funding out on the fly, learned the wrong lesson going into 2023.
In February, Petronio told Thomas triple-digit layoffs were necessary. Thomas told the school committee in March there would be no layoffs. He planned on attrition and federal money.
Thomas, Petronio and Correia met frequently with Clarkson and Mayor Sullivan, often discussing the amount Brockton would send BPS. Expenses weren’t discussed.
Petronio presented Clarkson with a multi-million dollar deficit in April. The CFO replied, “Make it work.”
Five days later, he did, providing a balanced budget with “fancy accounting.” Fancifully, the budget left out $10 million of “staff already on the payroll.” In fact, costs rose from 2022. Elsewhere, the budget underestimated 2022 spending without reason.
Through May, projections showed “a budget shortfall was inevitable.” When the school committee got a budget, it “misrepresented cost-savings” in transportation to “hide the disorganization.” Thomas wanted to portray savings from in-sourcing transportation.
Contractual deadlines for layoffs of unionized employees passed in May and June.
Investigators found that during this period, the school committee was kept “in the dark,” while the Mayor and CFO were not, about the “looming deficit.”
In August, Petronio wrote a letter calling for 112 cuts. Thomas said he never saw it. Regardless, he was still hiring, adding 80 unbudgeted positions mid-year.
Before school started, the person responsible for tracking spending retired. Throughout the year, school finance staff couldn’t see expenses mounting.
Personnel accounted for $13.2 million in overspending. Even so, Brockton High was short changed $11.4 million.
At the Huntington, staff reported “pure chaos.” Thomas’s unsuccessful relocation effort had failed. Sidelining critics, he insisted on the move, but delegated responsibility afterwards.
Positions were posted in August. The school year began with 10 out of 26 positions filled, including only three teachers, just one properly certified.
Thomas’s changes weren’t budgeted, the school committee approved an unfunded lease and paid $4 million, unbudgeted, to relocate students.
A meager yet meaningful amount overspent, about $1 million, went to a community mentor program. Some mentors were hired as contractors with letters of agreement that circumvented the state law and school committee policy on criminal-background checks.
In one case, Human Resources notified Thomas of a mentor’s open criminal case and never cleared them to work. Even so, the mentor signed $93,000 of agreements that year and was reported for assaulting a student.
In April 2023, a budget shortfall exceeding $8 million alarmed Correia. He emailed Petronio and Thomas. The next day, Petronio told the school committee BPS was “tight on money” without a number.
In August, Petronio told them BPS was “out of balance.” Texting CFO Clarkson afterwards, Petronio hailed his presentation, “Clear, concise … went right over their heads.”
Clarkson replied, “Excellent. Well, done!”
“Artificially constructed barriers between the City and the School Department caused key decision-makers to stay on the sidelines,” the report found. The divide, to investigators, “was somewhat of a leadership failure.”
“Mayor Sullivan and CFO Clarkson relied on the divide to overlook red flags concerning school finances,” investigators wrote. “Superintendent Thomas and CFO Petronio took advantage of the separate … silos.”
