hard deadlines

L-R Larry Fitzmorris, Michael Buddemyer, Marge Levesque, Richard Carpender, Sylvia Wedge.

There will be time for a more reasoned post about this evening's School Committee meeting — the folks attempting to start the Portsmouth Youth Basketball League, and Dr. Lusi's discussion of "defining Basic Education" both deserve more space. But the lede tonight was school committee member Dick Carpender taking PCC prez Larry Fitzmorris to the woodshed.

At issue was the letter from PCC, Inc. to Council President Dennis Canario, signed by Mr. Fitzmorris, which states that in the 2006-2007 fiscal year, "expenditures exceed the authorized numbers" by "$250,672 in the school department" and goes on to say that the PCC believes that the Town's "reporting to the Office of Municipal Affairs and the Auditor General has been inaccurate and misleading regarding authorized spending totals."

I think you can understand how Dick Carpender, as chair of the school finance subcommittee, might take issue with this. And he did, attacking the fundamental premise that the "School Committee expended money it was not supposed to."

"The PCC hired an attorney to represent them in the court case...filed a friend of the court brief, and they received a copy of Judge Indeglia's ruling," said Carpender "However, with all this information, when putting together the PCC letter and formal spreadsheet submitted to the Town Council as a supporting document in reference to the School Department budget, he conveniently forgets major parts of that decision and how the number was reached."

Carpender went through specific citations in Indeglia's decision, tracing the original base number the court accepted from B&E, and the adjustments to that number. These were reductions in the amount the Town needed to give the schools, and they included revenues from Medicaid ($100,000), cash balance ($131, 435) and additional revenue ($19,237), which taken together add up to $250,672. This is the number which the PCC identifies on their Town Council letter "Enclosure 1" as "Excess." But, said Carpender, this was not any excess, but rather "perfectly within the Court's decision."

Summing up, Carpender characterized the PCC's letter as "inaccurate and misleading."

But before he finished, he prodded Fitzmorris on a topic familar to readers of this site. "I support the concept of a watchdog group," said Carpender, but "The PCC has gone beyond that and has become a special interest group and should be identified as such. Membership is not open to all taxpayers, and, as I understand it, meetings are closed. They endorse specific candidates which I don't have a problem with. However, when they work to get those candidates elected with in-kind contributions and are unwilling to talk money because they don't have to, I have a problem."

These are issues previously reported in this space here, here, and here. Oh, and of course, here, here, and here.

Taking the microphone in his defense, Mr. Fitzmorris said, "I fail to see how the School Committee is involved."

"Reading in the newspaper," said Superintendent Sue Lusi, "The implication was that the schools AND the town overspent."

"I'm often misquoted in the papers," replied Fitzmorris.

"Do you clarify that?" asked Lusi.

"Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't," said Fitzmorris. "The headlines were inaccurate. We didn't accuse anyone of anything."

Lusi reiterated her plea for clarification. "Even word of mouth would be appreciated."

"I didn't make any attempt to correct the bad headlines," Fitzmorris replied, before launching into an attack on the school committee for what he alleged were their failures to be clear.

I approached Mr. Fitzmorris after the meeting to see if he would answer a few questions. Given Mr. Carpender's comments on the PCC's lack of financial disclosure around elections, was he willing to provide any additional information on what they spent supporting candidates? "Not willing to discuss it at all," said Mr. Fitzmorris.

I then asked Mr. Fitzmorris about Carpender's characterization of the PCC as a special interest. "The idea that the PCC is a special interest is ridiculous," said Fitzmorris. "What special interest do we serve? You need to do a little more research about the rights of groups to advocate issues in an election. It's not regulated."

I replied that I had exchanged correspondence with RI Director of Campaign Finance Richard Thornton, and the the understanding I had from him differed.

"Richard Thornton got it wrong," said Fitzmorris.

Well, Larry, I did a little more research. And even a cursory look turned up examples of Form CF-8, Schedule of Independent Expenditures, filed with the RI Board of Elections by Harry L. Staley on behalf of the Rhode Island Statewide Coalition (née Shoreline Coalition) which report funds spent both on candidates and on issues. Line items include "Newsletters announcing RISC candidate support," and "Mailing of above newsletter." The language on the form is pretty clear:

"The aformentioned Person reports to the Board of Elections that he or she, as the case may be, has expended more than $100 to support or defeat a Candidate or to advocate the approval or rejection of a question on the ballot." *see update, below

RISC has to file these but the PCC doesn't? Why is that, Larry? Or do I need to do more "research?"

BTW — wasn't one of the arguments underpinning the PCC's attempt at amicus status in the Caruolo action their claim that they were not just members of the general class of taxpayers? I'm not a lawyer, but doesn't that sort of sound like a special interest? Or am I misremembering? Unlike print publications, I can very easily, and happily do, print retractions and corrections, so let me know if I got this one wrong. Or I can just go bullshit about it at Reidy's and invoke my First Amendment rights...

Update: My bad. The RI Board of Elections has split out the forms for Ballot Question Advocacy and Candidate support. Expenditures on a ballot question would be filed on a BQA-3 rather than a CF-8. But Mr. Fitzmorris's central contention, that such contributions are unregulated, still does not appear to be accurate.