OF CHANDELIERS AND SHODDY PRACTICE IN ALABAMA: ANOTHER NAC AGENCY ROCKED BY SCANDAL by Barbara Pierce Maybe there is something about work with the blind that attracts disreputable people or encourages the proliferation of despicable human impulses. Maybe, like televangelists, agency personnel in this field are held in such reverence by the public at large that some of them begin to think they are above the law. Or perhaps it is merely the presence in the field of an accrediting body (NAC) that provides protection for virtually any shoddy practice (as long as only the blind are injured), perpetuating a network that inflates or fumigates professional reputations as required. NAC (the National Accreditation Council for Agencies Serving the Blind and Visually Handicapped) may be dying, but it still provides a facade behind which many of its member agencies, and most especially their senior officials, seem to believe they can snuff out the dreams and sometimes the very lives of their clients or students while reaping substantial public commendation and personal financial rewards. Many of the blind in Alabama feel that Jack Hawkins, Dr. Jack Hawkins (who until July 2, 1989, was the President of the Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind at Talladega) is a perfect example of this breed. In the ten years (1979-1989) during which he served as president of this NAC- accredited agency, he severely damaged the Institute's sheltered workshop, using its entire $900,000 nest egg, according to workshop officials, to handle bills the Institute failed to pay after an agency reorganization. His administration consistently invested more funds in the School for the Deaf than the School for the Blind, with such unfairness that even the deaf raised objections. In the opinion of many of the alumni, the AIDB Foundation, which Hawkins established, materially contributed to the increased segregation of both blind and deaf students from the larger community. The casual hiring practices of Hawkins' administration led, according to many, directly to bringing a man to the Institute who murdered four people associated with the agency. And as if all this were not enough, when in the summer of 1989 he moved out of Talladega to take the position of Chancellor at Alabama's Troy State University, he left behind him police investigations and Ethics Commission probes into two separate matters. He also took with him without authorization thousands of dollars worth of Alabama state property. Last year it was the Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind (see the March, 1989, Braille Monitor). Now it is Alabama. What NAC-accredited agency will be next, and what has yet to be uncovered? But back to Alabama. Has Hawkins' reputation been destroyed by these revelations? It has certainly been tarnished, but astonishingly he continues to serve as a member of the American Foundation for the Blind's Board, and he has moved onward and, one presumes, upward to a university presidency. As to the Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind, it is not at all astonishing that it continues to enjoy NAC accreditation. After all, what is NAC accreditation for? The job at the Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind which Hawkins left last summer at age forty-four paid him a reported salary of $85,000 a year with an additional expense account of $4,000, and his business travel and entertainment costs were, of course, reimbursed in addition. But there is more: He lived in the President's Mansion (their apt terminology, not ours) at the Institute--a residence which included the services of a maid and gardener, and there is still more: To keep the wolf from scratching the paint from the door of this NAC-accredited mansion the state also reportedly paid for utilities (including phone). But even all of that was apparently not enough. The Hawkinses (as press accounts make painfully clear in minute detail) were permitted to purchase with state funds and to use a mind-boggling array of luxuries. It is hard to believe that the Troy State Chancellorship can be more attractive than what Hawkins had, but why else would he leave the Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind, where he had (as the saying goes) the world by the tail with a downhill drag? The Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind (AIDB) in Talladega essentially provides such services as there are for the deaf and the blind of the state. The Institute consists of the industries program (a large sheltered shop, producing an impressive array of products and providing jobs for more than 300 blind and physically handicapped people); the E. H. Gentry Technical School (offering limited rehabilitation and post-secondary training in some fifteen trades); the Helen Keller School (serving deaf-blind and other severely handicapped children from a number of states); the School for the Deaf; and the School for the Blind. The Governor of Alabama appoints a Board of Trustees to oversee this conglomerate, and the board hires the President of the Institute. Until the early 1980's the adult programs at the Institute had a more or less autonomous director, who (like the Institute's President) answered directly to the Legislature and prepared and managed a budget separate from that of the rest of the Institute. But all things change, and in September of 1979 thirty-four-year-old Dr. Jack Hawkins, Jr., was appointed President of the Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind. He was (according to those who observed him for the past decade) young, energetic, and ambitious--so ambitious that he was not content merely to be president of AIDB. He persuaded his board to give him extra power and responsibility. In addition to the presidency of the Institute they appointed him to be director of Adult Services so that he alone would report to the Legislature and so that only through his office would flow the budget appropriations for the entire conglomerate. Presumably it was argued that this reorganization would result in eliminating duplication and waste, thus increasing the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of the entire administration. But the financial figures that have now come to light reveal that something else happened instead--something that had drained funds from Adult Services to the great benefit of the School for the Deaf. In 1988 the Alabama Legislature budgeted just under ten million dollars for the Institute's Children and Youth Services, which includes the School for the Blind, the School for the Deaf, the Helen Keller School, and the Parent-Infant Preschool Program. Adult Services received an appropriation of about three and a half million dollars, and the Industries Program got about one and a half million. According to sources close to the Industries Program, this last appropriation is intended to cover the expenses incurred in providing daily transportation for workshop workers and in subsidizing the wages of those workers who cannot work competitively. Though Industries' staff members seem not to have access to the figures that would reveal how much profit or deficit their program is running, they report that Adult Services was expected in 1988 to find almost three quarters of a million dollars as its contribution to what was called Shared Services--the concept here being that each component of the Institute should contribute toward defraying the costs of the services that they all share. With a combined budget of less than half that of the Children and Youth Allocation, Adult Services was suddenly asked to cover sizable new chunks of the Shared Services budget and to do so without any increase in its budget. One is left to conclude that the Industries program must have been showing a profit since Adult Services did manage to produce the funds demanded for shared programs. According to a confidential document, which was inadvertently released by the Institute, during the first eleven months of the 1988 fiscal year Adult Services contributed the following amounts in several categories of these Shared Services: $47,954 of the $65,000 salary paid to the Vice President whose duties included supervision of the Industries program; $134,000 for health services (according to Industries sources, this bought workers three hours a week of a nurse's time); $44,598, a little more than half of the President's salary; $13,739, about one quarter of the salary of the Executive Assistant to the President; $147,410, for the business affairs office; $26,583, half of the Development Officer's salary; $13,062, half of the cost of running the Publications Office; $9,966, about a fifth of the Public Affairs Officer's salary; and $5,424, half of the salary of the President's maid--a salary which, unlike those of the professionals on the staff, would seem to be anything but queenly. Annualized, Adult Services assessments for shared services for the 1988 fiscal year total $720,000, and Adult Services officials and area legislators reportedly pleaded with the Institute's President and the Board to reduce the amount for fiscal 1989. But for whatever reason, the 1989 assessment against Adult Programs was set at $801,000. Also effective in 1989, the Board voted to transfer $500,000 from the Adult Programs unrestricted fund--money not provided by the state for specific uses and therefore, almost certainly, profits earned by the blind workers and plowed back into the Industries Program--to be used for "future funding projects," according to a resolution passed at the August, 1988, Board of Trustees meeting. Apparently the fund transfer will enable the institution to use the money for construction projects on its school campuses. At the same time all this was happening, the sheltered shop staff was learning the hard way that their bills seemed to be the last ones paid by the Institute, now that the Industries Program was not independently responsible for its own budget and bill-paying. According to those close to the Industries Program, by March of 1988 the shop owed some 1.3 million dollars to suppliers--a revelation which the staffers found astonishing and infuriating. Even National Industries for the Blind made inquiries about when the Alabama shop planned to pay its outstanding bills. Rumor has it, however, that by September of 1989 the amount owed was down to $198,000 and that at the end of the year the slate had been wiped clean. But a decade ago the Industries Program had a nest egg of $900,000 set aside for large equipment purchase and meeting emergencies--a pot of gold which seems to be entirely gone now. Shop workers and management don't usually agree on much at Alabama Industries for the Blind, but the one clear exception is the notion that merging their Program with the rest of the Institute under Dr. Hawkins has been bad for the shop and bad for the state's blind adults. In the Alabama Code of 1975 the Legislature clearly established the separation between Children and Youth Services and the Adult Programs, so when Hawkins made his grab, there was a growing restiveness. By the late 1980s concerned citizens encouraged a local legislator (Clarence Haynes) to request the Alabama Attorney General to render an opinion on the legality of the Hawkins reorganization. On February 24, 1989, the Attorney General handed down his opinion, clearly stating that the Hawkins reorganization is illegal. Here is what the Attorney General said: ____________________ Don Siegelman Attorney General Montgomery, Alabama February 24, 1989 Honorable Clarence E. Haynes Member, House of Representatives Talladega, Alabama Dear Representative Haynes: This opinion is issued in response to your request for an opinion from the Attorney General. Question: Can the department of adult blind and deaf be combined with the Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind? Facts and Analysis: The statute establishing the department of adult blind and deaf is found at Code of Alabama 1975, Section 21-1-15. It states: "There shall be at the Alabama Institute for Deaf and Blind a separate department of adult blind and deaf. Legislative appropriations for the department shall be made separate and apart from the legislative appropriations made for the support and operation of this institute. The department shall have the authority to establish and to operate a library service for blind, visually handicapped, deaf, or severely handicapped persons, and the department is hereby designated as the official agency to operate a regional library for the blind, visually handicapped, deaf, and severely handicapped." [In 1976 then Governor Wallace transferred authority for the library to the State Library.] The fundamental rule in construing a statute is to ascertain and effectuate legislative intent as expressed in the statute. This intent may be gleaned from the language used, the reason and necessity for the act, and the purpose sought to be obtained. Shelton v. Wright, 439 So.2d 55 (Ala.1983). Section 21-1-15 states that the department of adult blind and deaf is to be a separate department in the Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind. According to the statute, legislative appropriations for the department are to be made separate and apart from legislative appropriations made for the support and operation of the institute. These appropriations are to be used solely for the operation of the Adult Deaf and Blind Department. The department is authorized to establish and to operate a library service for blind, visually handicapped, deaf, and severely handicapped persons and is designated as the official agency to operate a regional library for such persons. Therefore, the language used in Section 21-1-15 and the purpose in enacting the statute indicate that it was the intent of the legislature that the department of adult blind and deaf was to be separate from the Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind. Furthermore, my research does not reveal any authority that would permit the department to be combined with the Institute for the Deaf and Blind. Conclusion: The department of adult blind and deaf cannot be combined with the Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind. I hope this sufficiently answers your question. If our office can be of further assistance, please do not hesitate to contact us. Sincerely, Don Siegelman Attorney General ____________________ That is what the Attorney General said, but almost a year later it is still not clear what impact the opinion will have on business as usual at the Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind. The Board is the body that will have to change the institution's course, and forcing that action may require a lawsuit, which several people with whom we talked seem prepared to undertake if necessary. In the meantime one might be pardoned for hoping that, even if the blind adults in Alabama are suffering because of shared services and mingled funding, blind children, at least, might be benefiting from the skewed system. Alas, this does not seem to be the case. A document circulated to the Board of Trustees at their August, 1989, meeting indicates that during the past ten years $16,272,000 has been spent for renovation of existing structures, construction of new buildings, and maintenance of the buildings and grounds. Of this amount $9,569,000 was spent on the School for the Deaf and $2,411,000 on the School for the Blind. In fact, the physical plant of the School for the Deaf received about one and a half times the amount spent on the facilities of all other programs combined. The disproportion has become so lopsided that the Board of Trustees' deaf consumer representative recently recommended that more money be allocated to the School for the Blind, though there is no evidence yet that her plea will be heeded. Parenthetically one might inquire whether the academic programs of these schools are so sound that there really is sixteen million dollars available to lavish on physical plant and presidential luxuries, important as buildings and luxuries may be. Many in the blind community and several in the Alabama Legislature believe that the answer should have been no. But Dr. Hawkins clearly recognized the advantage of heading a facility that looked attractive, whether or not the students were flourishing or, for that matter, safe. For example, the two vans used by the School for the Blind both have driven, according to the School's principal, more than 200,000 miles. One is a 1975 model; the other was built in 1977. The Institute's director of transportation has said that one of the two is not road-worthy for any extended driving, but as far as is generally known, there are no imminent plans to replace either vehicle. We are informed that according to a recent furniture bid, the cost of furnishing and equipping the new student center at the School for the Deaf was $198,000 (with $105,000 being spent on furniture alone). On the other hand, the amount spent on furniture in the entire School for the Blind during the decade was $220,000. The new deaf student center contains a conference table, costing a princely $5,500, and 448 stacking chairs, each of which cost $46. During a recent alumni event at the School for the Blind, attendees report that the folding chairs they were using kept collapsing under them. The only other startling expenditures on the furniture bid are a $2,000 desk and several $238 trash baskets. It is puzzling to know how one could manage to spend $238 on a single indoor trash receptacle, but it must be gratifying for the deaf students to know that even their trash is departing in high style. If the school-age blind population being served in Alabama had been shrinking more rapidly than the deaf population during the past decade, marked differences in the funds expended on the schools might be understandable. But ten years ago 480 deaf students were enrolled at that school, and today there are 240--a decrease of 50 percent. In 1979 140 students attended the School for the Blind; today there are 130--a decrease of less than 10 percent. The Helen Keller School served 135 children in 1979 and enrolls 90 today, 60 of whom are visually impaired. The Parent-Infant Preschool Program works with about 125 blind children and roughly the same number of deaf children. The E. H. Gentry facility has historically served a population, sixty percent of whom are visually impaired, and about two-thirds of the adults working at Alabama Industries for the Blind are blind and about one-third sighted or otherwise handicapped. It is clear from these figures, reported by an Institute official as having been drawn from the Alabama Institute's own annual report, that today a majority of the people served by the institution are blind. Some observers have worried about what they see as the Institute's increasing tendency under the Hawkins administration to segregate its students from the greater Talladega community. Hawkins' AIDB Foundation--one of those convenient nonprofit reservoirs of money that officials can channel in directions not approved by the legislature--built a chapel that, according to members of the alumni, the students didn't need. These members of the alumni believe that it was preferable for youngsters to attend churches in the town rather than having separate services in a private facility. But the chapel was built to serve the students whether they liked or needed it or not, and as a result, the inmates of the Institute were separated still further from the town. During the early eighties, apparently as a cost-cutting measure, the Hawkins administration decided to reduce the Institute's security staff. At the same time observers close to the institution report that it was engaging in the kind of sloppy hiring practices that led to such catastrophic results at the Florida School for the Deaf and Blind. (See the March, 1989, Braille Monitor.) We are told that a man was hired to offer both deaf and blind youngsters at AIDB firsthand experience in artistic expression, without an interview or research into his background. The new employee brought a friend (Daniel Spence) to Talladega with him who had jumped bail in San Francisco and escaped from prison in Nevada, where he had been serving a sentence for stabbing a man to death in a homosexual brawl. This second man, too, began establishing contact with blind and deaf students as a volunteer aide. He described himself around town as working at the Institute, according to sources close to the situation. But again, so far as we can determine, no effort was made to learn anything about the man. Probably on February 21, 1986 (not all the bodies were discovered for some time), Danny Lee Siebert (also known as Daniel Spence) entered an apartment building housing disabled people and killed two deaf women and the two small sons of one of them. Sometime later in the rampage he also killed his next door neighbor and abandoned her body in a wooded area. Perhaps a routine background check, a face-to- face interview, or the presence of security officers on campus would have done nothing to prevent what happened, but one wonders. NAC, of course, showed no public concern. Whether they were privately concerned, we have no way of knowing. Only one of the deaf women was actually a current Institute student (the other was an alumna), so neither was enrolled in the School for the Blind. The fact that blind Institute students could just as easily have been the ones killed was immaterial. Cavalier hiring practices and cost- cutting in security measures presumably have nothing to do with standards and quality of services in the NAC lexicon. In May of 1989 Dennis Hartenstine, Executive Director of NAC, boasted to blind consumers in Michigan: "I assure you, if anything ever occurred and our commission [NAC's Commission on Accreditation] was concerned about the safety of the organization, the safety of the individuals being served and the accredited body did not take action to make changes, the Commission would withdraw accreditation." Viewed in the uncompromising light of Florida and Alabama, NAC's promises, like its standards of excellence, can be seen for what they are--a sham and a mockery. Apparently everyone in Talladega worked together to hush things up. Only a few people, labeled by the Institute as blind trouble-makers, asked difficult questions, and no one in the administration of the Institute or the accrediting body that was supposed to lend it respectability was visibly interested in seeking hard answers. Hawkins did summarily fire the art instructor, but the instructor was, of course, no longer in touch with the murderer, who had fled the scene of the crime in a car belonging to one of his victims. The murderer was caught eleven months later and is now appealing his sentence to die in the electric chair. In summary it seems clear that during the years of the Hawkins administration students and clients in general, and the blind in particular, have gotten short shrift at the Alabama Institute. Two things happened in the spring of 1989, however, that suggested a change might be in the wind. In May, Calvin Wooten (one of the two blind Trustees) was elected Chairman of the Board--the first blind person to be so honored. But according to the blind, he has remained deaf to their concerns. Staff members at the School for the Blind report that he does not visit the school or talk with them about their problems. He does, however, attend some School for the Deaf football games. As the situation worsened throughout 1989, the blind of Alabama collected about 250 names on a petition asking the state's governor to remove Mr. Wooten from the Board. The signers included virtually everyone who could be considered a leader in the blind community in Alabama. Unanimity among the blind has rarely before existed on any issue in the state, but the governor refused seriously to consider either their request or the underlying crisis that the very existence of two hundred-fifty names on such a petition demonstrated. It goes without saying that NAC did not disaccredit the institution or show any visible concern. Wooten can hardly be blamed for all the difficulties facing the blind at the Institute. After all, he has only chaired the Board since May of 1989. Hawkins is clearly much more responsible for the damage to the programs for the blind. Just about everyone in the blind community was, therefore, delighted to learn that on July 2, 1989, Dr. Hawkins was to resign in order to take the post of Chancellor at Alabama's Troy State University on September 1. In a state with a well-entrenched old-boy network and with an official as tightly tied into that network as Hawkins appears to be, there was no hope of making him accountable for what he had done to damage the Institute or the blind, but at least he would be leaving. Perhaps someone else could be encouraged to assist the blind. So Hawkins was wined and dined. The Alumni Association of the School for the Deaf presented him with a $1,500 set of golf clubs. The AIDB Foundation (the one he had established) bought up the remainder of his country club membership; the new chapel that no one wanted was named after him; and in general he was told what a fine fellow he was and what a wonderful job he had done. The blind, for the most part, remained silent. Then bits of information began to surface. Alabama has an ethics law with a provision that prevents the president of an institution from influencing the hiring of his wife. It appears, however, to an objective outsider that Hawkins wanted his wife to do some consulting work for the Institute in the Parent-Infant Program. According to some sources, she had been doing the work for years, and it only seemed fair for her to be paid for it. Others maintain that she didn't even begin to earn the salary she was eventually paid. Hawkins apparently dreamed up a scheme which would enable him to funnel some $24,000 of Institute money to his wife through the University of Alabama at Birmingham, an institution with which Mrs. Hawkins had previously been associated. When the story eventually blew open, it was covered by the Daily Home, the local Talladega paper. This is the way the Daily Home reported the story in late September, 1989: ____________________ Preuitt [State Senator]: Hawkins Abused Power as AIDB President by Denise Sinclair Controversy continues to surround former Alabama Institute for Deaf and Blind President Dr. Jack Hawkins, Jr. This time state Senator Jim Preuitt is questioning whether a contract allowing Hawkins' wife Janice to work as a consultant through the University of Alabama at Birmingham is ethical. Preuitt said Tuesday, "He (Hawkins) primarily contracted with the University of Alabama for $24,350 for a part-time job for Mrs. Hawkins. The money was funneled from AIDB to UAB. It may not be illegal, but it sure sounds unethical." Preuitt said there is no indication the Board approved the contract, which ran from June, 1988, to May, 1989. The contract was a cooperative agreement between AIDB and UAB for "the exchange of professional and expert services." It involved the AIDB Parent-Infant Program, which provides quality services to the hearing and visually impaired pre-school child. According to the contract terms, Mrs. Hawkins "developed, promoted, and evaluated" the program. Under the contract, Mrs. Hawkins received $22,000 for consultant services, $1,350 for travel and $1,000 for materials and supplies. AIDB reimbursed the University of Alabama for the services at a rate of $2,030 per month under the contract. Also, according to the contract, the services were for a two-thirds position. Hawkins signed the contract for AIDB. Signatures of Mr. Dudley Pewitt, senior vice president for administration at UAB, and Dr. Keith D. Blayney, dean of the School of Health Related Professions, were also on the contract, which was dated May 17, 1988. Preuitt pointed out that the contract doesn't say Mrs. Hawkins would be the recipient. "I do know she paid into the Alabama Retirement System for a salary of $22,000 during that period. I think it was cut and dried. It's a cowardly way to put your wife on the local payroll. I questioned Hawkins about this in January in Montgomery as to whether or not his wife was on the payroll. He said I was getting too personal." The senator said he had the AIDB minutes researched and there is "no authorization by the Board" for this contract. "This is another thing where the public will have less confidence in schools. These misuses of funds are reasons the public will not vote on new taxes. Institutions must be accountable." Preuitt added, "The local legislators have been trying for five years to get redirection of funding at AIDB to children and adults rather than beautification. We did not want to do what we did in Montgomery. But that was the only way we could get Jack Hawkins' attention. We wanted questions answered. Many people thought we were too tough on him at that time. We've just scratched the surface. There is so much abuse by this (Hawkins) administration. It got to the point where he thought he was above the law." Rep. Clarence Haynes said he questions the legality of the contract or agreement. "I understand the contract was typed at AIDB. This is just another example of mismanagement of funds. We have been trying to correct this for a couple of years. It's one of many incidents that are not right. We've (the local legislative delegation) been outgunned and outwritten in the newspapers." AIDB Board member Ralph Gaines said he had no knowledge of the agreement between the Institute and the University of Alabama. "I've been on the Board 2-1/2 years. I don't recall any discussion or Board action on this contract between UAB and AIDB, particularly Mrs. Hawkins." Jim Bosarge, assistant director of University Relations at UAB, said, "The consulting agreement was new in 1988. Mrs. Hawkins had maintained a part-time position with UAB since moving to Talladega. She is a long-term employee of UAB since the mid-1970s. The AIDB Field Services Office requested a person for consultation purposes prior to the agreement. She had been serving AIDB needs on a voluntary basis for several years. They requested more of her time, which led to the consulting agreement." Bosarge said the University had information from the Ethics Commission regarding Mrs. Hawkins' employment. "It's my understanding it was OK for her to consult with AIDB in one of her specialties if it occurred through another institution. She was a part-time employee of UAB. There was no reason for her not being hired as a consultant. No one else in the area had the skills to do the work." AIDB Board Chairman Calvin Wooten of Anniston declined comment on the agreement. The Daily Home was unable Tuesday afternoon to obtain information from the Ethics Commission in Montgomery regarding the matter. Preuitt and Haynes both stressed they feel strongly about public institutions' being more accountable for citizens' tax dollars and the recent abuses at AIDB point to this fact. ____________________ That's what the newspapers were saying, but that was far from all. Alabama also has a law that prevents anyone from buying state property except at auction. The salary and perquisites--a tax-free expense account and a mansion with maid, gardener, and utilities--bestowed upon Dr. Hawkins by the Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind out of funds provided by the state's taxpayers can go a long way in a small southern town, where the cost of living is lower than in most cities; and plenty of people, like the Hawkinses' maid, scrape along on less than $11,000 a year. If the state had provided Dr. Hawkins nothing more, this job would still, by any standard, have been generously (perhaps too generously) remunerative. But apparently Alabama (whether it knew it or not) was prepared to provide the Hawkinses with the use of a kingly array of luxuries in their residence. One state official told the Braille Monitor with disgust that Mrs. Hawkins loved wallpaper more than any woman he had ever seen. "Seemed like there was new wallpaper and carpet about every six months." When the time came to move from Talladega, the Hawkinses apparently couldn't bear to leave behind some of the lovely things the state had purchased. According to Dr. Hawkins, on August 17, 1989, he wrote a check in the amount of $2,781.65 to cover the cost of the items he wished to purchase--no doubt appropriately discounted because they were used merchandise. It is clear that Dr. Hawkins knew about the state prohibition on outright purchasing of Alabama property because he had someone from the Institute call the state's Ethics Commission to inquire how a person could legally buy a desk from the state. Probably assuming that the desk in question was an old and beloved memento of years of service, the state official said that if a check were written for the market value of the piece, it would pass muster, or at least no one would probably bother to ask questions. This is the way the Daily Home told the story on September 28, 1989. As you read, ask yourself what happened to the desk in question. Was the initial question asked about a desk simply because it would sound more innocuous that way? Was the desk in question never returned? How many other objects slipped through the cracks? Here is one of the many news stories printed at the time: ____________________ Ethics Complaint Filed Against Dr. Hawkins by Denise Sinclair An ethics complaint was filed Tuesday against former Alabama Institute for Deaf and Blind President Dr. Jack Hawkins, Jr. for purchasing furniture and china from the president's mansion. Tom Mills of Tuscaloosa, a 1981 graduate of AIDB's E. H. Gentry Technical Facility, filed the complaint with the state's Ethics Commission. In his complaint to the Commission, Mills said Hawkins improperly used his position to buy the furniture that belonged to the Institute. Wayne Hall, assistant chief examiner with the state Examiner of Public Accounts Office, said Wednesday afternoon that state law prohibits such a sale. "State property must be declared surplus property and sold according to the rules and regulations of the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs," Hall said in a telephone interview from Montgomery. Hawkins resigned from AIDB in the summer to become chancellor of the Troy State University System on September 1. Before leaving AIDB, Hawkins bought the furniture and china for $2,890. The items had been in the president's home on South Street. The items were a nest of tables, curio cabinet, a set of Lennox China (six place settings), two place settings of Lennox China, a set of queen size bedding, one bed frame, an entertainment center, a butcher block, and one desk. These items were returned to the mansion Wednesday afternoon, according to an AIDB official, and Hawkins will receive a refund for the items he purchased. AIDB officials have said they were advised in mid-August by an official of the state examiner of public accounts that the sale would be legal provided Hawkins paid fair market value. Hall said his office records show the initial contact was made by an AIDB official on Monday. "We received a call on Monday from someone at the school concerning the sale of a desk and the proper procedures. The other items were not mentioned," he said. Ethics Commission Director Melvin Cooper would not comment on the complaint, saying state law prohibits him from doing so. Mills said, "I'm not accusing Dr. Hawkins of anything. I'm concerned about the public picture statewide regarding presidents of universities and institutions such as this who spend money on lavish lifestyles instead of education. The voters in this state have a right to put their feet down when it comes to boards of trustees around Alabama who buy things like the entertainment center and china. Bibb County next door to me can't afford textbooks. The public should be incensed by this." Mills said that until this lavish spending is stopped by presidents of institutions, the public will keep saying "no" to any additional tax moneys or funds for education. "Until these big educational people quit living lavish lifestyles, education in Alabama will suffer," he concluded. State Representative Clarence Haynes and Senator Jim Preuitt are calling for an investigation concerning other items that were removed from the president's home before Hawkins left office. The items were returned Sunday. Hawkins said the items were inadvertently packed by movers. Bibb Thompson with Thompson Company, which moved some of the Hawkins' furniture, said, "My company employees only inventory and load what they are told to load by the person or family we are moving." ____________________ So said the Daily Home, and a careful reading of this article reveals that the entertainment center, nest of tables, Lennox china, etc., is not all that left Talladega with the Hawkinses. In fact, some who lose no love for Dr. Hawkins suggest that the financial transaction on August 17 provided convenient camouflage for the disappearance of a much longer list of items--a list as astonishing for its variety as for its value. But this is only speculation. The facts are clear enough. The Hawkinses have explained and explained that they were both running in and out of the house all day while the movers were there to pack up their possessions. They maintain that they had no idea what was being packed because the movers insisted on wrapping the things they were to move. But the maid reports that Mrs. Hawkins told her to instruct a workman to take down a chandelier for packing, so one suspects that a good deal of planning went into the preparations for moving despite the protestations of the Hawkinses that they never intended to take state property with them. When the absence of the valuables was noticed, the Hawkinses agreed to return them. Hawkins arranged to bring back the items on a Sunday so that he and members of the Board of Trustees could go over the inventory list and check off the returned goods. Hawkins just happened to arrive in Talladega Sunday morning instead of Sunday afternoon as agreed. He says he decided to stack the things in the president's mansion just to get them deposited before going to a luncheon engagement. He says he didn't know that the door locks had been changed, which meant that his key (it isn't clear why he still had a key to the mansion at all) didn't fit in the front door. He reports that he then found a side door unlocked, through which he carried the things he was returning. There is now no record of how closely the list of items Hawkins returned resembles the list of those reported as missing--one of the objectives that the Institute should have had in mind when it arranged to have its Trustees present when the goods were returned. A neighbor, however, had noticed someone carrying goods between a van and the house and apparently concluded that the mansion was being burgled. She called Representative Clarence Haynes, who in turn called the police. [It is worth considering why a citizen, seeing such unusual behavior, would not call the police directly. Could it have been fear of tangling personally with the powerful Alabama Institute? If the observer recognized the ex-president, one can hardly blame her for wishing to avoid being pulled into a legal matter.] In any case, the police dashed to the scene to find the esteemed ex-president of the Institute surreptitiously slipping state property back into the house. Perhaps it really was all an unfortunate mistake--perhaps. But credulity has its limits somewhere. Here is an excerpt from the Daily Home's account of the story on September 27, 1989: ____________________ Legislators Call for Investigation of AIDB Matter by Denise Sinclair TALLADEGA--State Representative Clarence Haynes and Senator Jim Preuitt are calling for a full investigation into an incident in which items, pieces of furniture and silver, were taken from the president's mansion at the Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind. Former AIDB President Dr. Jack Hawkins, Jr. and several others returned Sunday the items, which were discovered missing following an inventory of the mansion. Hawkins assumed the chancellorship at Troy State University on September 1. Haynes got a phone call Sunday morning from someone who saw a van parked at the mansion, and thought the residence was being burglarized. Haynes reported it to the Talladega Police Department, who on checking found Hawkins there returning the missing items. Haynes picks up the story from there. "I had zero knowledge of any of this happening before Sunday morning. I received a call that someone had broken into the president's home at AIDB. I don't know who called. I assumed it was someone in the neighborhood who spotted the van. I called the police. The police later called me. I met them there at the home. I was told the Hawkins family had brought some things back from Troy State in a Troy State University van. I understand two weeks ago some AIDB officials had reported a list of items missing from the home after Dr. Hawkins left. Through business services and controller's office inventory and with the aid of purchase orders, a list of items was put together that were taken from the home. Hawkins was called and ordered to bring the items back. Had it not been for AIDB Board member Ralph Gaines, these items probably would not have been returned." It was reported by other news agencies in the state and in the Daily Home Tuesday afternoon the incident was a misunderstanding according to Gaines and Board Chairman Calvin Wooten. In a statement to the Daily Home Tuesday afternoon, Gaines said, "The Daily Home has reported I have said there was a `misunderstanding' regarding recent events involving the President's home at AIDB and some of its contents. I have not communicated with anyone at the Daily Home until I saw this report in the paper. The only misunderstanding I know of was the time and manner certain items which had been removed were to be returned to the home." Gaines went on to say that Hawkins had done a good job at AIDB and as a Board member he hopes no adverse effects on the Institute, its children, and adults would occur because of this issue. "I hope we can continue with the good work that's going on, and I am sorry these things have occurred." After learning of the incident and not knowing the full story, Haynes asked Board Chairman Calvin Wooten, "What's going on?" Wooten, Haynes noted, said the items had been "inadvertently taken by movers." Wooten in a telephone conversation Tuesday afternoon called the incident "a comedy of errors." He said, "Everything has been brought back to the mansion. I knew myself he was coming Sunday. I didn't go into any details with him on returning the items and volunteered to help him if he needed assistance. He said he had it under control. It didn't cross my mind the former president would be accused of breaking into his former home. I contend it was no break-in. All the items are inventoried and everything is back in place." The representative questions why Hawkins returned to Talladega Sunday morning instead of the appointed time of 3:30 p.m. the same day. "He had an appointment with the Board at 3:30 Sunday to return the items. I have not talked to him. I do know he and the others went in the house early and put the items back unknown to the current resident, Dr. Erskine Murray. I did not know at the time when I called the police it was Dr. Hawkins. But I want to point out he had no business in that house." Haynes said that in talking with Wooten, he feels the Board chairman wants to "cover up" the matter. "This is the kind of thing that has been going on for years, and this proves what some of us have been trying to point out about the Hawkinses' blatant disregard of the taxpayers' money. I will ask for further investigation by the Board into this, and also I want the Board to check out the possibility of items bought without purchase orders that are not on the inventory list." Haynes commended board member Gaines for his effort "to do the right thing." He added, "I only wish the chairman (Wooten) could see things the way Gaines does." He concluded, "Wooten has tried to shield some of this from the public. It is not right, no matter who it is, to take property that doesn't belong to you. I think people deserve to see the truth--good, bad, or indifferent." Preuitt echoed Haynes' sentiments and said he will call for a full investigation. "From all indications the items were taken from the mansion and moved to Troy. The big question is do these items belong to the school, the state, or the taxpayers, and why would they be moved? The merchandise was asked to be returned. Hawkins had moved out almost 30 days ago, and he returned with the items Sunday. Why move the items out if they didn't belong to you and then slip them back in? Dr. Murray is living there, and he was not home when this took place. It's wrong. Why take the goods to begin with when they belong to the taxpayers? This warrants a full investigation," Preuitt said. He, too, thinks a coverup is occurring. "They say the movers got the items by mistake. That will not hold water. Most of the merchandise belonged to the Institute and the taxpayers. The movers were directed to move the items. This is not a mistake on the part of the movers, and it deserves being investigated because it is taxpayers' money." A list of the items returned to the president's home are: one tea set, one ginger jar with base, one dresser, one lamp globe, two entrance rugs, two small round tables (one with marble top), one brown narrow table, two mirror runners, one octagon mirror, four crystal candle holders, one tea pot with two cups, one large Revere bowl, one soup tureen, two glass decanters, one crystal compote; One china plate, four figurines, one cup and saucer, three silver wine goblets, 12 small Revere bowls, one large brass planter, one capa de onte planter, Buttercup silver (22 cocktail forks, eight knives, eight forks, six butter spreaders, eight salad forks, seven tablespoons, one sugar spoon, eight teaspoons, and eight soup spoons), 17 silver napkin rings, one lace table cloth; One casserole dish in silver holder, one silver wire basket, two oblong silver platters, 18 silver coasters with three holders, three silver trays, one set of blue stoneware, one set flatware, two brass lamps, one side table, one soup tureen, three decorative apples, 41 glass serving plates, one waste basket, one gate leg table, one chandelier, one two-drawer file cabinet, one chaise lounge, one padded headboard with bed accessories, one brass floor lamp, one oak desk, one bookcase, one bedside table, one quilt stand, and one VCR. ____________________ There it is as it was reported all over the state at the time. And what about the investigation being conducted by the state's Ethics Commission? From the beginning there was next to no chance that the Commission would find against Jack Hawkins. The Old Boy network in Alabama is alive and well, and the blind are not a part of it. As we go to press in December, the Ethics Commission has found in Hawkins' favor. As one person close to the case, who asked not to be identified said, "He may have broken the law, but not the ethics law, so he is exonerated." This leaves only the police investigation of the Hawkins purchase of state-owned goods and his removal and return of still other state property. The District Attorney is not saying what he intends to do. The current grand jury is about to stand down, so he may wish to wait until a new one is impaneled. Maybe justice will yet be done, but the blind of Alabama are understandably skeptical. Why should it begin now? A new President of the Institute was named on November 9, 1989. He is Thomas Bannister, who was the Superintendent of the Utah School for the Deaf and Blind. He was the only one of the five finalists who had any past experience at all with blindness, so (although as we have seen in the case of Hawkins, experience with blindness is not necessarily a proof of rectitude) perhaps the luck of blind people in Alabama has changed. One can only hope--but may be pardoned for doubting. With a united voice the blind of Alabama have called for redress. The governor has ignored them, and Legislators James Preuitt and Clarence Haynes (whose blind mother is an active Federationist) have demanded reform of the Institute to no avail. And where was NAC when questions about the quality of services to blind people were being raised and condemnation of the Institute's President was filling virtually every newspaper in the state? In bed with the establishment, of course, where it always wants to be. In May of 1989 Dennis Hartenstein explained with sanctimonious condescension to a group of blind people that NAC's mission is to improve agencies in the field. If accreditation were to be withdrawn or refused, he asked rhetorically, what incentive would there be for that agency to improve its services to the blind? To which one is driven to reply: What impetus is there now? Alabama has never been a good place for blind people, but its attractiveness has been declining during the past decade. Jack Hawkins is clearly the immediate cause of this sorry state of affairs, but the ultimate responsibility must lie at NAC's door. Whether NAC likes it or not, the general public understands the concept of accreditation to be a way for experts to indicate their approval of an agency's actions and policies. NAC must decide whether it would rather claim that the morally bankrupt activities and policies of the Hawkins administration are outside the purview of its standards or that it has simply been looking the other way in an effort (one supposes) to improve the Institute. Both alternatives are damning, and both are probably, to one degree or another, true. We will say it once again in case we have been misunderstood. We have no quibble with the concept of accreditation. If it were done with commitment to improving the welfare of blind people, if it reflected society's commonly held notions of legality and ethics, if one could ever see a pattern that suggested blind people were flourishing and growing in competence through the work of accredited agencies, then one could embrace NAC accreditation with enthusiasm. The Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind, and its checkered history under the leadership of Jack Hawkins, is only the latest chapter in the NAC scandal. The corruption at the Alabama Institute demonstrates once again the true degree of NAC's commitment (or lack thereof) to quality service and high principles. When NAC and its agencies cozy up together and claim to be taking care of the blind, the blind lose every time. We will keep fighting for justice in Alabama, as we have so often done before. Through hard experience we have learned that if we who are blind do not fight for ourselves, no one else will do it for us.