Federal Investigation of Schools

Pittston Area One school board member has been questioning computer contracts for several years

April 24, 2009

Major arrest prompts oversight policy

By Mark Guydish mguydish@timesleader.com
Education Reporter
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YATESVILLE – When the Pittston Area School Board agreed Tuesday to increase oversight of purchases, board member Terry Best brought up an old sore spot: computer hardware and service costs.

He noted that, in 2006, the district had given much of that business to “one company that charged a 350 percent profit.”

Best didn’t name the company involved, but board minutes and purchase records make it clear he was referring to Intellacom, a company owned by Anthony Trombetta, according to state Corporation Bureau records. Intellacom was providing computer hardware and service to Pittston Area since at least 2004, records show.

Intellacom also won a contract for a “Security System upgrade” when bids were handed out for the high school renovation project on April 24, 2007. According to minutes from a meeting in June 2006, the contract was for upgrades districtwide, and not just the high school. The contract price was $269,192, and the minutes show it as a contract through the “Pennsylvania Education Purchasing Program for Microcomputers,” or PEPPM, a state program that allows a district to purchase certain computer items and services without seeking bids.

Trombetta dealt with the board financially a third way. At a Dec. 18 meeting the board agreed to participate in a “Tax Increment Financing” Program, or TIF, for a project on land known as the Lieb Tract in Jenkins Township. TIFs are designed to spur development of blighted property.

The district agreed to give up property taxes on the land for 12 years. The money is used instead to pay off a $1.1 million loan from the Luzerne County Redevelopment Authority to the land developer. Times Leader archives show Trombetta as one of the developers of the Lieb Tract, now known as Insignia Point Courtyard.

No one has accused Trombetta of wrongdoing. When a reporter stopped at the Intellacom office in Plains Township and asked to talk to him, a woman said Trombetta would have no comment.

The Times Leader began reviewing documents from Pittston Area and other school districts after federal investigators sought and obtained records going back to 2004.

The probe so far has included Pittston Area, Wilkes-Barre Area School District and Wilkes-Barre Area Career and Technical Center. Pittston Area Superintendent Ross Scarantino and Wilkes-Barre Area School Board member Brian Dunn have been charged with accepting money in exchange for awarding contracts. Dunn was also accused of taking money in the hiring of teachers in the district.

The accusations against Scarantino prompted a string of actions at the Pittston Area School Board meeting Tuesday that members said were designed to restore public trust.

Board members said they knew nothing about what Scarantino had done – a claim some audience members flatly and openly rejected – and board Solicitor Joe Saporito pointed out that no one knows the details because the affidavit of probable cause in Scarantino’s case is sealed.

The affidavit in Dunn’s case is also sealed. Those documents would typically explain the reasons for the charges.

On Tuesday the board voted to have Saporito work on a way to make sure future administrator contracts require immediate suspension without pay if the administrator is charged with a serious crime. If found innocent, the person would get back pay; if convicted, the administrator would immediately be fired.

Scarantino is on leave, using accumulated vacation and sick days, and Saporito told the board that state law and the wording of Scarantino’s contract required the board to grant that leave.

Best also proposed Tuesday that a board committee approve all purchases, except in an emergency. The board voted to have Saporito draw up a policy that would work without hamstringing daily business at the district office.

It was during a debate about that proposal that Best said he had raised a similar idea in 2006 as a result of computer purchases.

While Best didn’t name any companies, meeting minutes show the board had recurring and sometimes lengthy debates about the amount of computer business going to Intellacom.

In 2006, Best asked for records showing total spending and which companies got the work. At the June meeting he cited the figures he got in response to that request, noting that the district had spent $190,000 on computer services in 12 months, and that $147,000 was with one company. Initially, no companies are named.

But in September meeting minutes, board member Clem Lello, who is no longer on the board, made a motion to have Computer Visionaries Inc. provide all computer networking, sales and service work. The motion died for lack of a second.

Lello then noted that he thought CVI and Intellacom were supposed to share computer work, but that it wasn’t being shared. Best then asked why the district pays Intellacom for a service contract yet still pays whenever Intellacom comes to work on computers.

Best also asked who decides which company is called to do computer work, and Scarantino answered that both are. Near the end of the debate, board member Joe Oliveri noted that the person who owns Intellacom is a Pittston resident.

The debate continued to pop up throughout 2007, with the focus on the same issue: some board members clearly felt Intellacom was getting too much of the work and charging too much.

When Intellacom won the contract for security upgrades in April, the minutes list only the 14 companies that were awarded the bids for the high school renovation project, not the other bidders. The Intellacom work is listed as a “PEPPM State Contract.”

The PEPPM program was launched in the 1980s and is coordinated by the Central Susquehanna Intermediate Unit, or CSIU.

The CSIU “PEPPM Buyer Guide” says the agency “seeks and awards bids on technology equipment, software and supplies on behalf of schools, agencies and libraries.” Price information for all awarded product lines is posted on the Web. Buyers, such as school districts, can compare the prices and place an order through PEPPM, rather than seeking and reviewing bids themselves.

Records show Intellacom has also done business with the Wilkes-Barre Area Career and Technical Center, which is jointly run by five districts, including Pittston Area and Wilkes-Barre Area.

Records also show Intellacom has done business with Luzerne County Community College. Scarantino served on the college board of directors until May 2008.

Trombetta’s involvement with the Lieb Tract development is not apparent in the Pittston Area minutes from the Dec. 18, 2007, meeting, when the board approved the resolution agreeing to participate in the TIF. The resolution does not name the developers.

But in February 2008, when the Jenkins Township supervisors voted to participate in the TIF, a Times Leader report listed Trombetta as a developer.

Mark Guydish, a Times Leader staff writer, may be reached at 829-7161

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