'Bring him back': At explosive Brockton school board meeting superintendent tears into mayor

BROCKTON — In a dramatic and fiery confrontation, Brockton Superintendent of Schools Mike Thomas tore into Mayor Robert Sullivan at Tuesday night's school Committee meeting — accusing the mayor of betraying him and declaring to loud applause from a packed room that if he were still on the job the turmoil at Brockton High School would not be happening.

It was Thomas's first public appearance before the school committee in six months, since he left on medical leave in August after the bombshell revelation that the school district had run a large deficit in the previous school year.

By 7:01 p.m. Tuesday night, Feb. 27 — one minute into the meeting — the Arnone Elementary School theater was pushing its 150-person capacity. When Thomas arrived 30 minutes earlier, the already partially-full auditorium broke into applause, halting the ongoing Policy Subcommittee meeting scheduled an hour before.

Thomas took the podium to another round of applause from the crowd, who chanted “Thomas,” “We love you, Mike” and “bring him back.”

Thomas told the School Committee, “I understand what you had to do.”

“It’s unfortunate you pay me all this money to have me sitting out when you know I could make a difference.”

“If Mike Thomas was here, this stuff at the high school you know would not be happening. Not a chance,” said Thomas.

Thomas: 'I'm ready to come back'

Thomas went out on medical leave in the last week of August with the intention to retire on March 3. But last Wednesday, on Feb. 21, Thomas informed the district he was “well enough to return to work” and that he rescinded his resignation, according to the committee's attorney Sarah Spatafore.

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School Committee says no

But the school committee instead voted Tuesday night to put Thomas on paid administrative leave effective Feb. 21 to “preserve the integrity” of the committee’s audit into Fiscal Year 2023’s $18 million overspent budget.

At Tuesday night's meeting, on the topic of the deficit, Thomas expressed outrage at the mayor, saying in the early days of the deficit crisis, the mayor let an "embezzlement rumor" go out before it became apparent there was no missing money, but instead overspending.

"Do your audit, do your personal investigation, please come back and look at my bank accounts, look at my credit cards, look at whatever you want to look at in Mike Thomas's background because Mike Thomas never took a dime from the Brockton Public Schools and I was made to look like a common thief," Thomas said.

Thomas said the reason for the deficit was simple.

“The money is the same where it was before: transportation, special ed. These were costs we could not absorb,” Thomas said. “And did I overstaff the schools? You’re damn right I did.”

In December the City Council, under intense pressure, cut a $9.9 million check to stop the state from taking over school finances due to the fiscal year 2023 deficit. On Tuesday night, Thomas blasted the mayor for a comment Sullivan made at the time: "This is the city bailing out a deficit on the school side," Sullivan said in December.

Thomas said on Tuesday: "The school department is the city."

"If that's the way the city looks at the school department, then we've got a lot of problems. You can keep me on paid administrative leave. I think it's a mistake. I'm ready to come back and you need me back," Thomas said before walking out to a standing ovation.

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Thomas asked for vote to be held in public

The committee's vote on how to respond to Thomas' request to return to work was originally planned to be held in executive session, but at Thomas's request it was instead held in public.

What did the mayor say?

Sullivan attempted to keep order as members of the crowd shouted out comments of support for Thomas as Sullivan spoke briefly at the end of the meeting immediately following Thomas.

Sullivan said there is currently an "ongoing fair and impartial audit" and when those findings are ready the report will be made public.

"We need to figure out what happened," an impassioned Sullivan said.

"People can finger point all they want, but I also want to be clear on this, you only know what you know. I was not made aware of a fiscal 2023 deficit until the date of Aug. 8 and that's a fact," Sullivan said.

What's happening with the deficit?

The state's Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) has paid for representatives from data analysis company Open Architects to review the school district's financial records.

TJ Plante from Open Architects announced at a recent meeting various areas in the Fiscal Year 2023 budget where the district overspent its budget by millions of dollars including transportation and special education.

According to Plante, BPS signed between 125 and 150 individual, non-union contracts with BPS staff at varying levels of command that included benefits including overtime, sick time buyouts and big salary increases.

“There’s just so much happening,” said Plante at a Feb. 6 school committee meeting. “There are so many misbudgeted items.”

4 school board members want National Guard at BHS

Thomas' appearance comes as Brockton High School, along with elementary and middle schools across the district, is facing severe challenges including: a massive staffing shortage; violence and destruction by a portion of the student body; and various other safety and security concerns.

Four school committee members — Joyce Asack, Tony Rodrigues, Claudio Gomes and Ana Oliver — sent a letter to Sullivan formally requesting that he ask Gov. Maura Healey to deploy Massachusetts National Guard soldiers to the high school "to assist in restoring order, ensuring the safety of all individuals on the school premises, and implementing measures to address the root causes of the issues we are facing."

Healey has not deployed the National Guard but said the state will pay for school safety audits for all schools in the district.

This article originally appeared on The Enterprise: Brockton schools superintendent Mike Thomas 'ready to come back'