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The Beacon-designated “exhaustive audit” is contained in a PDF file created 12/5/19, and is entitled “Professional Instruction and Fiscal Audit Report”. The report refers to itself as an audit, and refers to the report writers as auditors and “The Audit Team”. The preparer was a law firm. However, I can’t find anywhere on the law firm’s website (bglaw.com) where it says they prepare “audits”, or what kind of professional service their audits are supposed to be. I’m not the expert, but from a common-sense standpoint, this is no audit.

There is no apparent reason to hire a law firm for non-legal services. The report reads like a biased, rambling 69 page editorial which never gets to the point. There are many pages of statistical trivia (such as pg 18-40). Within this same section of pages there is section entitled “Findings and Recommendations” (pg 27-40), but there are no recommendations, and it’s far from clear what the findings are. Vague and undeveloped legal argument is scattered throughout the report. Given the preparer and some of the content, the report also looks like a malformed legal opinion. Either way, it’s not signed or certified. It’s not clear why the report is valid for any purpose.

The $8M recommendation is promoted at pages 54 to 66. This is not an “analysis”, but only a pseudo-estimate based on opinion and limited hearsay fact. When it comes to facts, there are serious omissions. The city charter, Article IX, section 9-5, says: “The school committee shall prepare a financial report of its activities which shall be submitted to the mayor and city council within ninety (90) days after the close of the fiscal year, and within six (6) months of the close of the fiscal year, an audited complete financial statement.” The audit report said they are analyzing “fiscal practices” (pg 5) and they reviewed documents “to the extent they existed” (pg 14), without stating what does not exist. This is followed with generalized descriptions of what they purportedly found. They never said they found any audited financial reports. You can’t make a recommendation on anything, let alone an $8M increase, without working with true audited numbers. Maybe this part of the job was delegated back to the client, when they said the client should “expend considerable time and effort educating Warwick officials regarding the need to increase funding . . . ” (pg 53).

The audit team promotes the Caruolo Act (pg 11), which essentially says a city can turn on itself, dividing into adversarial parties over the issue of money, and give an appointed official (a judge) influence or control over public policy and discretionary acts constitutionally reserved to elected officials and the People. They offer curious if not bizarre advice: “The District should expend considerable time and effort educating Warwick officials regarding the need to increase funding to a District with already among the highest per pupil expenditures in the State ($19,585) . . .” (pg 53). Notice they don’t say the parents or taxpayers need “educating”, because even though the People paid for this report and will bear the consequences, what the People know and think does not matter to the swamp. What I think is, the “educating” should be focused on subjects like Violation of Separation of Powers, and Deprivation of Rights Under Color of Law.