Do Baby Governments Need Their Own Sarbanes-Oxley?
Simple Justice: Hot on the heels of the Long Island/New York school district attorney/superintendent scandal, which has and will continue to expand as long and as far as anybody who wishes to scratch the surface will take it, comes this curious solution from the opinionistas at Newsday. What if there was a Sarbanes-Oxley-type law holding elected officials both responsible, and criminally liable, for the competent exercise of independent judgment?
One school superintendent said that his contract prohibits the school board from meeting unless he is present in the room, according to Nassau County Comptroller Howard Weitzman, who told the story at a hearing on Thursday. Weitzman’s point was that the contract provision greatly reduced any chance that independent auditors could alert school board members about financial problems.
“I was told this was a common practice,” Weitzman said of the contract provision. “This is a cultural issue that needs to be looked…