Wednesday, February 17, 1999
Flaws found in planetarium deal
State says money hard to track
BY CHRISTINE WOLFF
The Cincinnati Enquirer
NORWOOD — The longstanding relationship should be tightened between the city school board and its planetarium's fund-raising foundation, according to a state auditor's report.
The Tristate Education and Technology Foundation and the board need to put in writing the many verbal agreements between them and stop the loose accounting practices that have made it unclear how foundation money is spent, according to the report.
The foundation, a group of volunteers, was formed in 1982 to raise money to reopen and maintain Drake Planetarium. It is housed in Norwood High School and used by Norwood students and as a field-trip destination for area schools.
The report, released Tuesday, also recommends that the foundation pay the school board $265,551 — part of the salaries of Drake Planetarium officials that the foundation had agreed to cover.
The report's findings are not a surprise, school district officials said.
“We're where we were in August 1997, except now we have spent the money to have a state auditor say something,” said Eric Goering, a school board member. “And we may have destroyed our relationship with the foundation.”
The report was initiated in October 1997 at the request of Allen Smallwood, a candidate in the November 1997 school board election. He'd prepared a report in August 1997 asking the board to examine and make official its arrangement with the foundation.
Mr. Smallwood could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
The auditor's report — which as of Jan. 30 cost the school board $24,900 — is the first official look at the ties between the board and the foundation. It is only a recommendation.
The study should be used “a blueprint for improving financial accountability of the foundation,” said Tom Prendergast, spokesman for State Auditor Jim Petro.
“We are not an enforcement agency. ... We are saying there are circumstances where public monies are recoverable,” Mr. Prendergast said. “The school board and its legal counsel make the decision whether to enforce (the report's findings.)”
The relationship is improper between the school board and the foundation, the report said, because the board did not have the authority to set up a nonprofit corporation. The report recommends ways the board can properly set up a foundation to benefit the planetarium.
It is doubtful the school board could operate the planetarium without the foundation's help, said Barbara Rider, an assistant superintendent.
“We certainly hope the foundation doesn't have to dissolve,” she said. “I see us getting together with the foundation and working out a payment plan.”
An option offered in the report is that the district receive foundation-owned planetarium equipment in lieu of full payment.
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