enlarge File photo by Jack Milton/Staff Photographer

Schools chief Mary Jo O’Connor is under fire for a Portland School Department deficit. “If I thought for one minute that my resigning would stabilize this organization, I would walk away today,” she said.

They wanted her to start innovative programs that would help students learn and teachers teach. They asked her to address federal mandates to provide multicultural programs for a growing immigrant population.

They wanted her to close some school buildings because of a shrinking student population. And they wanted her to be more open and approachable than the former superintendent, Mary Jane McCalmon, who was criticized publicly for lacking those qualities.

Members of the search committee, which chose O'Connor from 17 candidates, commented on her warm, momlike personality and described her as "soft on people and hard on issues," according to news articles at the time.

No one questioned O'Connor's ability to oversee the finances of the state's largest school district.

No one questioned the fact that O'Connor, who had been the district's curriculum director, came to the job without experience as a superintendent or an assistant superintendent.

"It wasn't an issue," said James Banks Sr., who was a committee member from 1979 to 2002. "She had a vision of approaching education from a different perspective. She was interested in teaching kids who learn differently. It was something new and refreshing, and she related to teachers and parents in a down- to-earth way that made them comfortable."

Now, as Portland officials wrestle with an estimated $2.5 million budget deficit that O'Connor says took her by surprise, she and others readily acknowledge that she didn't get the job because of her financial expertise.

SOME CALL FOR RESIGNATION

O'Connor's supporters give her high marks for accomplishing much of what she was hired to do. Still, they admit that her budget deficiencies likely contributed to the city's biggest financial and credibility crisis in years.

Richard Paulson, the finance director O'Connor hired two years ago, resigned Monday after it came to light that he wasn't keeping close track of school expenditures and revenues. The city's finance staff took over the School Department's finance office on Thursday and may run it for good if Portland officials move ahead with a plan to combine the two offices, as they were in the past.

The controversy comes at a difficult time, when the state is pushing a new school consolidation law that will require a public referendum on the school budget next spring. The struggle to maintain quality schools with dwindling resources promises to intensify in a district where the student population has dropped from more than 14,000 in 1970 to about 7,000 today.

O'Connor says she accepts responsibility for the budget crisis, but she believes her staff made mistakes that were beyond her control. She has said publicly that she is relieved that the city is now overseeing school finances.

While some people say she should resign or be fired for her role in the deficit, the School Committee has yet to hold her accountable publicly.

O'Connor said she took a school-finance course while studying for her master's degree in school administration at the University of Southern Maine.

"I have an executive-level understanding of the budget," she said Friday. "In a district this size, I shouldn't have to worry about the day-to-day finances."

With that mindset, critics say, the money troubles that Portland schools have now will only happen again. They say the School Committee shares the blame for going along with her spending proposals without questioning them.

The deficit includes $1.7 million in overspending that started shortly after the City Council reduced the overall 2006-07 school budget by $500,000. Then the committee agreed to hire more than a dozen special education teachers and settled employee contracts with 3 percent salary increases instead of 2.5 percent as...