It’s keystone cops time in Durham, and this Herald-Sun editorial calls for the man at the center of it — Durham Schools Superintendent Eric Becoats — to go. Becoats’ troubled  history with the system is well known: using a school bus for his family’s personal shopping outing and questionable uses of the system credit card. The latest fiasco involves the system’s rainy day fund, which either no one is watching, or they’re watching it and keeping the balance hidden.

Last spring, during budget negotiations, the school board pushed back hard at County Manager Mike Ruffin’s recommendation to allocate the same amount in local funds (the bulk of the school’s funding comes from the state) this fiscal year as last.

Pointing to a fund balance of only $4 million, which they thought was dangerously low, school officials pleaded for, and got, another $2.4 million.

Turns out, though, the system’s end-of-the-year audit showed a balance of $19.7 million.

As JLF’s Jon Ham pointed out here, the revelation is outrageous and shows there’s plenty of incompetence to go around.

The newspaper’s recommendation is this:

This is a broken relationship. Becoats’ performance as superintendent has become a serious distraction in a district that can afford nothing less than laser-like focus on improving its instructional results. It threatens the school’s standing with the purse-string-holding commissioners.

It is time for him to go.