saychel, Ramapo was anything but a Kiddush Hashem.
There was the sale of the public school building to a yeshiva (or was it a Beis Yaakov?), which was blocked by a state court. The school had originaly appraised at almost $6 million, but the Jewish-run board of education got another appraisal for just over $3 million. The appraiser was later charged with a felony of accepting a bribe to supply a false appraisal, paid for by the Jewish school. The sale later was completed for $6.6 million.
There were charges filed against the Jewish school for buying religious books/seforim using public funds, which is illegal.
On August 31, 2011, New York State Office of the Comptroller released an audit of the Board, for the period July 1, 2008 to April 13, 2010. The report criticizes the district for a number of serious lapses including failing to put $2.4 million in professional services contracts out to bid, allowing three senior school board members to receive health care through the school district’s insurance pool after they failed to make $15,672 in payments, and failing to maintain proper inventory controls over $2.4 million in textbooks purchased for students not attending public schools, as required under state law. Most unsettling, the audit found that District officials inaccurately projected a June 30, 2010 fund balance of $13 million when preparing District’s 2010-11 austerity budget that was presented to the electorate and on which cutbacks and layoffs were based. In fact, the District’s audited financial statement showed a June 30, 2010, fund balance of $17,793,047, substantially higher than public estimates. The report states: “The board, along with district officials, failed to fulfill its stewardship, oversight and leadership responsibilities when it failed to establish a proper control environment, implement its own adopted policy and establish policies and procedures required by sound business practices.” The report concludes. “The deficiencies exposed district funds and assets to abuse, waste and/or loss.” The local paper headline was “East Ramapo bungled millions,” and in a scathing editorial, the paper called for a thorough investigation of the board.
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