Scandal in Sandusky

Since they got their new school superintendent in 1938, the citizens of Sandusky, Mich. (pop. 1,819) have had every reason to be pleased. Harry C. Smith, 50, is an affable, energetic man who quickly proved to be a whiz at running Sandusky's two schools.

In spite of rising costs, he scarcely added one iota to the annual school assessment. He kept the student-teacher ratio at 19 to 1, bought $60,000 worth of new shop equipment in 1949, even paid up a $23,000 bonded debt six years before it was due. How did he manage? The school board never bothered to ask. It was so thoroughly delighted with $6,800-a-year Superintendent Smith that this year it voted him a $1,200 raise.

Rumors & Results. Then, last month, the town began to hear some strange rumors about its schools. For some reason that no one in Sandusky quite understood, State Superintendent Lee M. Thurston began an investigation of Smith's enrollment records. Last week Thurston announced the results. He had just uncovered, said he, "the most serious school scandal ever to confront us."

According to Thurston's investigators, the scandal had really begun back in 1945. In that year Smith's enrollment figures suddenly began to soar, entitling Sandusky to thousands of extra dollars in state aid. Though no one suspected it at the time, Sandusky's school lists were just about as phony as Chichikov's serfs in Dead Souls. By 1950, said the investigators, Superintendent Smith was claiming state aid for 1,243 pupils, when his actual total enrollment was only 797. Last year he claimed 1,253 pupils, actually had only 785. Some of the names were fictitious; some belonged to students long since graduated; some were imaginary brothers and sisters of town children. But wherever the names came from, they had brought in quite a bit of extra revenue: a total of $145,914 in the last two years alone.

Proofs & Protests. The state superintendent claimed ample proof of his case. The former principal of Sandusky High School, Clarence G. Carlson, admitted that on Smith's orders he had been padding his rolls right along. Superintendent Smith promptly denied that he had ordered Carlson to do any such thing. "Mr. Carlson," said he, "took the enrollment count and I took his word for it. I guess it's just his word against mine."

At week's end, the stunned citizens of Sandusky were still trying to decide which man's word to take, were still wondering whether anyone had pocketed any of the money. But these questions were only the beginning of their problem. By law, the state of Michigan has the right to demand a refund for all overpayments made since 1950. After 15 years of happy coasting, Sandusky is not accustomed to meeting that sort of bill.

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