Brockton mayor agrees to step aside as chair of School Committee after budget scandal

Local News

“I support that. People think that Sullivan wants to be the chair. I didn’t choose to be the chair. It’s set by the regs here in the City of Brockton.” 

Brockton’s mayor agreed to step aside as chair of the city’s School Committee, a position the mayor has held for decades, to comply with recommendations from independent reports into the district’s devastating budget crisis.

At Wednesday’s School Committee meeting, members talked through more than a dozen recommendations from multiple reports, including a suggestion to replace the chair of the School Committee with someone other than the mayor, with reporting obligations to the mayor.

“I just want to go on the record and say I support that,” Sullivan interjected. “People think that Sullivan wants to be the chair. I didn’t choose to be the chair. It’s set by the regs here in the City of Brockton.” 

Sullivan said the city’s mayor has been chair of the Brockton School Committee for decades. For him to step aside, City Council would have to make actions or amendments, which would have to be approved at the state level.

“I think it’s actually a great idea,” Sullivan continued. “Wearing two different hats, the same person, isn’t ideal.”

Two independent reports released last week, one commissioned by the city and the other by the School Committee, found that general incompetence in budgeting and accounting, as well as a lack of oversight, led to the $18 million budget deficit that surprised the community and leaders.

The city’s 180-page report, authored by Nystrom Beckman & Paris, also said that Sullivan was just “too busy.”

“We were advised repeatedly in interviews, including by the Mayor
himself, that the Mayor was too busy running the City to be intricately involved in the School Committee,” the report read. “This system does not work in Brockton.”

Mayor under scrutiny after reports on origins of budget crisis

Sullivan’s agreement with the recommendation comes at the same meeting where school leaders were initially set to hold a discussion about Sullivan during an executive session, meaning it would be closed to the public.

They were going to “the reputation, character, physical condition or mental health, rather than professional competence, of an individual or to discuss the discipline or dismissal of, or complaints or charges brought against” Sullivan, according to the meeting’s agenda. 

However, Vice Chair Tony Rodrigues motioned during Wednesday’s meeting to table the discussion because another member was absent.

The mayor has been recently under fire since the city’s report, which was far more detailed than the School Committee’s, identified Sullivan as a “key player” in the budget process. The report claims the mayor, who was reelected to his third term last fall, knew about the deficit in March or April of 2023.

Previously, Sullivan said at a February committee meeting he “was not made aware of a fiscal ‘23 deficit until the date of August 8th, and that’s a fact!”

“Given its hands off approach, the School Committee was in the dark about the looming deficit. The City CFO and Mayor, however, were not,” the report, authored by Nystrom Beckman & Paris, said. “Yet no meaningful steps were taken during FY23 to confront and mitigate the looming financial crisis.”