10:40 AM CDT on Tuesday, August 10, 2004

By BILL CAPO / WWL-TV

When members of the Legislative Audit Advisory Council sat down Monday to discuss Orleans school system finances, the meeting started with lukewarm good news from the state legislative auditor on efforts to clean up the financial mess.

"The encouraging part is that they are making some progress in some of those areas, although there is going to be a long way to go," Legislative Auditor Steve Theriot said.

But things went downhill from there as the air conditioning failed and tempers flared when legislators tried to determine whether the coming year's school system budget is balanced or not.

"It seems like we just keep adding to the mess ... where does it stop?" Sen. Tom Schedler said.

WWL-TV Amato was criticized for not bringing the OPS Chief Financial Officer

Then lawmakers discovered Amato brought a consultant, not the system's chief financial officer, to answer questions. Amato said he had asked the CFO to "continue some work back at the office."

Rep. Ed Murray told Amato he thought that decision was "irresponsible."

And things did not improve when Chief Financial Officer Robert Peters did show up. When Murray asked Peters how many accounts weren't reconciled, Peters said he didn't have an exact number.

"We are working through four years of non-reconciling," Peters said.

Audit Advisory Council members mentioned the ultimate threat: asking the Legislature's Joint Budget Committee to withhold state funds.

"As drastic of a decision that is, it is a decision I think we are all starting to look at as a possibility, and that's a bad thing," Rep. Cedric Richmond said.

But Superintendent Amato said he is about to fill four key financial jobs, and the foggy financial picture is already clearing up.

"We've already put in a very stringent process to eliminate checks going to people who don't deserve them. Every time we meet we have deeper and deeper layers of correction," Amato said.

When they heard Amato planned to meet with Attorney General Charley Foti to discuss prosecuting some people who allegedly received checks they were not entitled to, Legislative Audit Advisory Council members decided to write District Attorney Eddie Jordan and ask him to help.