Pond Slime...Scum to Slime: Fleecing the Disabled

 

And now for the good new 9/25/2011:  Barranco FIRED!

The long rise and hard fall of John Barranco

He found big money in an unlikely place — a regional agency serving disabled children. And then investigators closed in. 9/18/2011 (The Boston Globe)

John Barranco

        In June, 2011, I posted the story of John Barranco, a former school superintendent in Massachusetts, the director of a special education collaborative and director of a related  non-profit education center who allegedly fleeced school districts and taxpayers for an excess of $10 million dollars. Some published estimates exceed $30 million.

       The allegations dealing with this man and his buddies come at the expense of the most vulnerable population on the face of the earth, disabled children.  Hell is reserved for people who abuse and neglect the disabled children.  Fleecing money from their services is abuse! In the words of G.K. Chesterton"...the young demand justice; the rest of us beg for mercy!"

       The story exposes outrageous salaries and bonuses of $500,000 a year, no show jobs for friends, trips with friends to the Kentucky Derby, expensive cigars, parties for directors where the average person has 8 drinks, gifts to his daughter. Of course, he hired his live-in for an outrageous salary and had his fellow buddy superintendents placed on the boards of both organizations he ran. The allegations are pages long and referenced in my June 2011 blog. The allegations boggle the mind.

      So now he has two vacation homes (Florida and New Hampshire), paid for in cash and he is unresponsive to requests for comments. His cohorts are also silent. The disabled drool, sit in wheelchairs,  and cry for a response.

     "To win the approval of the two agreements, Barranco and Clisbee relied on overlapping boards of directors at the Collaborative and the Center to push them through, Sullivan’s investigation concluded. Because of the overlap, five superintendents voted twice to approve the pacts, once on behalf of the Collaborative and again on behalf of the Center, another conflict of interest.

Moreover, Barranco later awarded three of those board members high-paying jobs at the Center: James McCormick, now the superintendent of schools in Mason, N.H.; Robert Calabrese, who is dead; and David Hawkins, who appears to be still working for the Center.

The MEC Board of Directors

The fourth of the five board members, Richard Moser, attended the Kentucky Derby with Barranco - at the Center’s expense - a year before casting his votes for the two agreements.

None of these individuals returned numerous calls from the Globe." Boston Globe, 9/18/2011

So Barranco is non-communicative. The local Superintendents who sat on the Boards? Well, some were were handsomely rewarded by jobs upon retirement from the public sector. Others were wined and dined in style. Were they simply unknowing dupes? Superintendent of Schools are usually not known for blatant stupidity ( I realize this is a generalization but I personally know several who are really stupid.). Were they collaborators in a scheme which rewarded them handsomely? Did they approve tuition rates and fiscal contracts which screwed the disabled and resulted in needless school spending resulting in higher taxes and staff layoffs. Did they know the effects of the money allegedly fleeced from or  by  them? I am sure that they will be investigated as there are multiple state and federal investigations in progress.  Do these guys even care?  What would be the honorable thing to do?

(1) Let's start with an admission of responsibility and greed?  Quickly followed by an apology!
(2) Let's have an acknowledgement of the pain endured by society's most vulnerable?
(3) Let's return the money and gifts to the disabled and the taxpayers?
(4) Let's apologize to the teachers who were laid off because of your greed?
(5) Let's divulge all the facts in truth:  who knew, who helped, who benefited?

In the long run, repeated silence and denials will only succeed in costing taxpayers more money in investigations, prosecutions, trials and appeals...money already allegedly fleeced from the disabled and citizens. Of course, the Massachusetts Department of Education (DESE) deserves no kudos for its oversight of special education collaboratives, but they will defend their incompetence on budgetary bases. No one is ever responsible, only the vulnerable suffer.  For once, Mr. Barranco and conspirators, simply do the right thing.

All details, subpoenas, audit reports are referenced in my June blog with additions.

Pond Scum...updated AUGUST 31, 2011

LATEST BLOG UPDATE ON BARRANCO, MEC, MSEC and ITS LEADERSHIP, CLICK HERE!

Dr. John Barranco, Ed.D

UPDATE: August 31, 2011    Here is another update.  The 10 million dollar alleged fraud could actually be as high as 37 million.  Let's trust Sped Collaboratives and Superintendents to care for the most vulnerable school aged populations and not line their pockets.  Anxiously waiting for indictments!!!  Are school systems places where Sped students are valued and cared for or are they secret bank accounts for school superintendents!  The filth in Massachusetts makes me want to vomit!

UPDATE: AUGUST 18, 2011 Here is another update where pond scum becomes slime.  A big conflict of interest between John Barranco, MEC and a convicted lobbyist.  They are, of course, both in hiding.

UPDATE: AUGUST 10, 2011 
     HERE is a newer update from the state auditor...up to $30 million of bogus charges.   Booze, lavish parties, hotels, etc.  at the expense of the most vulnerable people in society.  Every Superintendent and Administrator on the Board of Directors and higher up employee should be FIRED and JAILED.  They should have known as it was their job. The high life at the expense of disabled kids...no wonder everyone is hiding and not speaking.

UPDATE:  AUGUST 9, 2011

     HERE is a copy of the grand jury jury subpoena for payroll records for our superintendent friends in the Merrimack Education Center scandal....see who is being looked at.  These people were supposed to be the guardians of tne most needs....as GK Chesterton said: "...the young demand justice, the rest of us beg for mercy.:

     HERE is the news report of the federal district court investigation of pond scum...betrayers of the children with special needs.  Many more chips will fall!

       Special needs students are the most vulnerable population in schools and in society.  They appear imperfect in their physical appearance, in their motor skills, in their cognition, in their ability to get voted "most likely to succeed" .  They compete for scant public dollars with Advanced Placement programs, meterology courses and school musical productions.  In the educational scheme of things, special needs programs should be fully funded first and then regular education students should receive a fair share.  It's not the way things happen because special populations have NO voice.  Parents and students are so beaten down by life and non-responsive agencies that they have little fight to give them VOICE.

      Then, along comes a piece of dog-shit like John Barranco, the former head of the Merrimack Education Center and the Merrimack Special Needs Collaborative in Northeastern Massachusetts.  He is accused (good word) of fleecing money from special education funds to the tune of over $10 million dollars
over the past years.  That would buy a hell of a lot of diapers and g-tube sets.

      Some years he received a half-million in salary and bonuses, some years he was a no show, some years he hired his live in girlfriend as a director for one hundred grand , some years he hired his superintendent buddies on his board to six figure positions.  Some years he fixed up his vacation homes, some years he paid for days at the Kentucky Derby with cigars, many years he hosted lavish parties and paid for all his gasoline with the center's monies.  Some years, he bought his daughter a mahogany table for a present.  Oh yeah, and there was a robotic swimming pool cleaner.  He also hired Richard McDonough as a no-show lobbyist/PR person for $80,000.  Oh, by the way, McDonough was just convicted of theft of honest services, etc with the former speaker of the Massachusetts House (Sal DiMasi) a week or so ago for pushing a software contract with Cognos and getting a kickback.  Guess which software the Collaborative and Center use.

       Yes, there is outrage in Massachusetts from the Governor, the Attorney General, the Inspector General, the State Auditor and every other hack in government.  Who was minding the store and providing oversight for the past ten years?  And what about the kids?  With the fleecing of 10 million, what needed services did handicapped kids not receive?  What services were not provided in schools as local districts paid an additional 10 million for nothing....And, people had to know.  Boards of Directors?  Accountants?  Bookkeepers?  Directors of Programs?  They are all equally responsible and equally guilty.  Frankly they should all be fired and all jailed.  Every penny of their assets should be liquidated and given to programs for kids with special needs.  Their indifference is reprehensible.

      So my humble opinion leads me to believe that Dr. Barranco is a piece of shit which needs to be rapidly flushed because the stench pervades the surroundings.  Frankly, I wish that his "privates" would drop into my VitaMix.  Of course, the Center has hired a PR firm to mitigate the blow-out...things, they say in the  Inspector General's report are inaccurate (but, they aren't specific).  Ok, they weren't real Cuban cigars and the amount wasn't 10 million, it was 9.99 million.  I hope Dr. John rots.
     Oh, here's an update: three local superintendents who help steer the money to the Merrimack Ed Center that olde Dr. John headed were rewarded with lucrative jobs there upon retirement.
      "The superintendents who approved the money transfers -- former Billerica Superintendent Robert Calabrese, former Tyngsboro Superintendent David Hawkins and former North Middlesex Regional School Superintendent James McCormick -- were rewarded with six-figure jobs at MEC and extravagant bonuses, according to state Inspector General Gregory W. Sullivan.

"The superintendents taking part in his scheme betrayed the trust of parents, students and taxpayers," Sullivan said in an emailed statement to the Lowell Sun."

Read more:http://www.lowellsun.com/ci_18336940#ixzz1QIEl8xPI

And more filth rises to the surface;

 
And, more detail of the filth within:  who knew and when did  they know?  why did no one report the abuse?

Article from Massachusetts Non-Profits

Perhaps we should start an ex-education superintendents WALL OF SHAME.

      

All facts and data are from Boston Globe, Boston Herald, NECN and the Lowell Sun (links are in body of blog text); opinions are mine!