WEST MILFORD An investigation, which resulted from a complaint circulated to numerous officials including Governor Jon Corzine and Passaic County Prosecutor James Avigliano by local resident James Foody, concluded that the district did not do anything wrong. A detailed field investigation by the Office of Compliance of the New Jersey Department of Education into West Milford’s 2003 School Construction Bond Program found no irregularities or statutory violations, according to the summary report received recently by Board of Education business administrator Steven Cea. The construction bond which raised $4.5 million locally matched with $1.7 million of state money funded a media center at the Paradise Knoll School, a three-room addition at the Maple Road School, and building and site upgrades at all eight schools in the district. Foody alleged that West Milford school officials had misled the public with the wording of the bond referendum and then compounded that misstep when they later moved funds from one element of the eight-school project to another to offset cost overruns. Office of Compliance field auditor Janet McNerney disagreed, noting that local officials had followed the law to create a single large project that included multiple, broadly characterized elements. This allowed enough flexibility to accommodate escalating costs during the time between the project’s design, the bond referendum and the actual approval of bids. Ray Montgomery, director of the Office of Compliance Investigation said, “OCI was advised that projects for the building program were not completed and there was an over expenditure of funds. The review disclosed that the allegations are without merit.” Foody was disappointed with the results. “In the least, our school administrators are guilty of not telling us how they spent our money and why procedures were changed. After all, they work for us, don’t they?” He likened the investigation to “the fox watching the henhouse,” and said that it didn’t mean the district would be cleared by the School Construction Corporation, another entity that he had contacted. But he admitted that they would likely rubber stamp the department of education’s findings. Board President Midge Touw, while pleased with the outcome, was frustrated that Foody had failed to bring his concerns to local officials before raising them at the state level. “We could have directed him to our bond counsel (Steven Rogut) for an explanation,” said Touw, who also noted that involvement in the field audit by Cea and his staff had consumed 44 hours of administrative effort, not including the drafting of a memorandum by Rogut. “These costs are unrecoverable to the district,” she added. “The schools and students lose, whatever the legal outcome.” But according to Foody, he had brought his concerns to the board numerous times during the budget hearings before the April vote and it was out of his own frustration that he contacted the state. The investigation yielded a compliment, according to Cea, “The field auditor told me that our books and records were extremely well-kept, relative to those she had examined in other districts.”