BY MARCI HEPPNER

Is the Katonah-Lewisboro school board turning into Humpty Dumpty, so fractured that it can never be put back together again? At Tuesday's board of education meeting, the public witnessed a display of frustration, anger, and in some instances animosity between and among board members and the administration, sentiments that have been building for the past two to three years.

The recent actions of board members Bruce Pavalow, Robert Meyer, and Robert Dixon, who sought counsel from the state comptroller's office after receiving anonymous letters alleging illegal actions by a district employee, were the final straw that seems to have blown the school board to pieces.

Their fellow board members, Don Scott, Donna Walsh, Brent Hailpern, and Peter Breslin, are angry that they were not confided in before the three men went to the state, and that this latest incident is a repetition of other times when the three have acted on their own.

"Mr. Pavalow, you started by getting inquiries about certifications [of staff members], then published the information in the newspapers in such a way that none of the other board members could respond," Mr. Hailpern said. "Now you, Mr. Dixon, and Mr. Meyer have taken information, which you should have shared with the board, and gone to the comptroller, the attorney general, and we are now being investigated. Here again, public information is going out there and we cannot respond. You have made our job as board members - twice now - nearly impossible, and how that can possibly be doing the best you can when you're undercutting your fellow board members just infuriates me."

Board president Don Scott read from a letter to the community that he prepared with Ms. Walsh, Mr. Hailpern, and Mr. Breslin.

"If the anonymous information was credible and important enough to be shared with the comptroller's office, these three trustees had an absolute responsibility to share this information with the other board members with which they serve and with the superintendent, unless, of course, it involved the superintendent," he said. "If it involved the superintendent, then they were bound to share this information with the board alone."

Mr. Pavalow, Mr. Meyer, and Mr. Dixon defended their actions, saying that they did not trust their fellow board members to act on the letters, because of the majority's history of outvoting them whenever they have tried to pass a motion putting a topic on the agenda for discussion.

Mr. Pavalow said the three men felt their action was the most appropriate based on the information they had and the circumstances.

Superintendent of schools Dr. Robert Lichtenfeld, reading from a prepared statement, said that he and assistant superintendent Dr. Karen Benedict are disturbed that their reputations have been damaged by the innuendos surrounding the investigation of the district brought on by the three trustees.

Dr. Lichtenfeld said that he and Dr. Benedict have agreed to waive their personnel privacy rights to public disclosure and asked point-blank if the employee under investigation is either one of them.

"Certainly it's not to the board's advantage to have the community wondering if the top two administrators are under any suspicion of any wrongdoing, and the community deserves to know this as well," he said.

Dr. Lichtenfeld said that on Nov. 5 he included in his Friday newsletter to board members a recommendation from the school board's auditor, David Brown, to conduct an in-depth audit to study the effectiveness of the district's internal controls. Dr. Lichtenfeld said he told the board in his newsletter that he thought the audit would help to assure the public that a "Roslyn-like situation" - referring to a Long Island school district found guilty of fiscal improprieties - did not exist in Katonah Lewisboro, and would demonstrate that the board and administration are serious about abiding by ethical and rigorous accounting standards.

"It is unexplainable that Mr. Pavalow, Mr. Meyer, and Mr. Dixon, suspecting some possible irregularity, would not act on this recommendation but instead wait two and half months, silently letting an opportunity go by - if not an obligation - to investigate any concerns with

either their own board auditor or another independent auditor," Dr. Lichtenfeld said.

"Since there's only two people that can get things on the agenda - yourself and the president, Don Scott - are you telling me that

you put this on the agenda and we voted it down?" Mr. Meyer responded. "You claim that in November you were turned down, and that's not the case. If you put it on the agenda, there's a record of it. I don't have the ability to put something on the agenda, as you well know. Only yourself and Mr. Scott are able to put things on the agenda. I wish that wasn't so."

Dr. Lichtenfeld said that when he didn't get a reaction from the board concerning his recommendation, he assumed the board was satisfied with district office operations.

Mr. Meyer said he told Dr. Lichtenfeld at the time that he felt the audit should be done, but by an outside auditor.

Dr. Lichtenfeld responded that he wrote Mr. Pavalow suggesting that the board ask Mr. Brown for a quote for performing the audit, and if the board rejected the estimate and wanted to open the bidding to other auditors, he would arrange it.

"You were given an option in this e-mail saying that you could get someone else if you wanted," Dr. Lichtenfeld said. "It didn't matter to me who did it."

Mr. Breslin, who was newly appointed as chair of the finance subcommittee last fall, said he is responsible for not following through on Dr. Lichtenfeld's suggestion.

"This is a matter which should have been taken on by the finance committee," he said. "And if you want me to take responsibility for not doing this as chairman of the finance committee, I'll take responsibility. This was not a board matter. It should go to the committee first, then to the board, and we didn't do it."

Mr. Pavalow said he was not prepared to publicly state if Drs. Lichtenfeld or Benedict were the subject of the investigation.

"If you'd like to talk about that, we can go into executive session," he said. "It's a personnel matter."

"We're waiving our personnel rights," Dr. Lichtenfeld said. "We just want to know if either one of us is the subject of investigation. We're willing to risk that within our own community."

"What you're causing right now is a problem here," Mr. Pavalow said. "We can work this out, we can talk about it, we can go and reason this out, but you wanted to bring this out in public, so let's go."

Mr. Pavalow referred to a portion of Dr. Lichtenfeld's statement that two members lied to the public and the rest of the board when they said at a previous meeting that they did not contact the comptroller's office. According to Mr. Pavalow, the three men had been advised by the attorney general's office to not discuss

their meeting with anyone until after the investigation is completed.

"If the attorney general calls you up on the phone and then you're told not to discuss this, yeah, you know what? No, I'm not going to," Mr. Meyer said. "And in the past I have brought forward to you when somebody had called me and complained of the potential improprieties at Meadow Pond. I gave you the person's name, and I gave you their telephone number, and I turned it over to you."

"You just said that I lied," Mr. Pavalow said. "First of all, we do not lie; technically, we did not lie."

"You're asking who contacted the comptroller," Mr. Meyer said. "Well, first off, I didn't contact the comptroller. So I take exception that you call me a liar. You've done that in private. You're now doing it in public."

Mr. Pavalow said he would gladly discuss the matter publicly, but he feels under an obligation to conform to the attorney general's instructions.

"If you can get me a waiver from those two organizations, I'd be happy to say something," he said. "There are things I'd love to say because they'd clear everything up, but I can't."

He said he's confident that when the investigation is over, the community will come together, because the investigation will show no improprieties have occurred.

Reading from the joint letter, Mr. Scott expressed the exasperation of the four members that they still do not know the nature of the allegations in the anonymous letter or who is under investigation.

"Amazingly, this letter still has not been shared with the board or the superintendent," he said.

Mr. Pavalow agreed to reveal the letters in executive session with an attorney present, but that he'd like to speak with the attorney first.

"At least we've made that much progress tonight," Mr. Scott said.