Two Parents Protest Hillel Harkham’s Tuition Increase A source critical of Hillel’s current regime emails me:
The two Persians (Wiseman Dawoody and Morris Shamouni), who were told by Dean Rabbi Baruch Sufrin 18 months ago not to run for the board, sent out this letter [Jan. 15, 2007] to fellow board members concerning Morey’s lack of regard for the bylaws and his way of working unilaterally by increasing tuition. Last year Morey and Sufrin made comments to a few board members about raising tuition. However, the deficit is due to the voluntary reduction of enrollment by Morey and Sufrin from a total of 700 students to about 580 since Morey Levovitz took over. This deficit is despite the millions of dollars that were endowed to Hillel (due to the hard work and friendship of Rabbi Gottesman to the Skolnick and Finkelstein families). These monies were intended by these generous families for scholarship and to offset tuition increases for the Hillel families and not intended for hiring of more administrators (who do not respond to the parents needs), pay for all the harassment law suits filed against the school (due to belligerent behavior to long-time staff and families) and to have the school pay for Beth Jacob’s Kollel. When the parents find out about this raise they are going to be furious and file suit to order an audit. Morey and Joe Englanoff changed the check signing signatures to be theirs so they can spend at will without having their spending being checked by other individuals. This goes against all accounting principles and laws since the people spending the money should not be signing the checks. As a result there is no system of checks and balances like in years past when Rabbi Gottesman was dean.
