Financial Audit Proves What Somerset County Board of Education Feared: Failing Leadership

Somerset County's Board of Education has been in the news since January 2025 when the new Board members took their oath of office and stepped into the chaos of administrative incompetence. The proof for this fact rests in the chaos we saw in every public board meeting, which included no working procedures to enforce any of the Board policies, obstruction to complete the 2025/26 school budget when the superintendent tried to deny the Board of their budget, and the public display of dysfunction to complete the SEA labor negotiations.

The radical activists allegedly led by Dr. Tasker-Mitchell had tried and failed every which way to obstruct the Board's mission, and even went as far as trying to remove Chairman Lankford from the Board.

Somerset Superintendent Fails at Her Attempt to Remove Board Chair

The Board adopted its budget during the June budget session as presented to the public. The budget only included funding for 6 vice principals, since there are only 7 schools and a technical center in Somerset County.

Today, Somerset County has about 11 Vice Principals.

But how can this happen if the allocations of an approved budget cannot be exceeded?

As it turned out, Chairman Lankford's relentless pursuit for the truth in financial management was right after all.

The financial audit exposed the reckless financial management of the superintendent and her failed leadership.

Social media posts by the prior Chief Financial Officer, Ms. Johnson shifted the blame of failure to the OLA (legislative audit), but the public session at the October 21, 2025 Board meeting exposed the truth. Both the superintendent and Chairman Lankford were not discussing the legislative audit on the meeting agenda, but the regular annual financial audit for Fiscal Year 2025 that was completed by the independent auditors at UHY.

To avoid accountability for the past school year (for which the UHY audit specifically covered), the superintendent then ambiguously pivoted to the legislative audit covering the past decade, in attempt to distract from the financial activity during her term.

Source: October 21, 2025 Board meeting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7oaDx3XfjE

Furthermore, the sudden resignation and departure of the most current Chief Financial Officer and the Supervisor of Special Education raise further questions about the competence of the superintendent's leadership.

She has been a superintendent for more than a year, and details of her failed leadership will be known at the November Board meeting when the auditors confirm their participation and presentation to the public.

Also during the October public meeting, the presentation on student discipline revealed that incidents worsened in comparison to the same period last year.

Somerset County student performance is still one of the worst in the State of Maryland, even though there's a slight improvement reflected in the standardized test scores across the state.

All individuals who blamed the Board and smeared Chairman Lankford and the members of the Board for asking the hard questions should publicly apologize and appreciate their leadership in trying to bring accountability and transparency to the voters of Somerset.

Teachers, Custodians, Parents and Students deserve Success, nothing less.

Fellows & Editors

October 25, 2025 

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