Feb. 23, 2002 – With a bill to grant the Board of Education control over public education in the territory wending its way through the Legislature, Sen. Adelbert Bryan wants an audit of the board's operations over the last four years.
On Thursday, Bryan asked the V.I. Inspector General, Steven Van Beverhoudt, to conduct an in-depth audit of the administration and operation of the board since 1998. Bryan also sent letters to the board chair, Jorge Galiber, and the Senate post auditor, Maureen Cullar, asking them to provide him information regarding the board's:
– Scholarship funding received, approved and granted.
– Contractual arrangements, including the hiring of consultants.
– Loans granted to individuals.
– Other expenditures, including for staffing and for other operating expenses.
"This information is needed in order for the committee which has oversight to determine exactly what are the issues" which need "to be addressed by the committee of jurisdiction in the Legislature," Bryan, a member of the Education Committee, wrote to all three officials.
By Saturday it was unclear whether Van Beverhoudt would grant Bryan’s request.
The Public Education Reform Act of 2001 now before the 24th Legislature would revamp the school system by giving an elected board, instead of the Education Department administration, governance for public education, with its policies to be implemented by an Office of Public Education that would replace the department.
The board — comprising four members each from St. Thomas and St. Croix and one from St. John — would have a status similar to that of the Port Authority and the Water and Power Authority, according to its backers. Its makeup would include individuals familiar with the vocational education needs of labor and of management in the territory, and someone representing the University of the Virgin Islands.
Board members would be publicly elected to four-year terms, as is the case with
members of the current Board of Education. The school system would be headed by a superintendent hired by the board.
The Education Department has long been criticized in the Legislature and elsewhere for being top-heavy at the management level. In recent Senate hearings on the bill, Education Commissioner Ruby Simmonds said the department hasn’t taken a position on the proposal.
