MEMO TO: Superintendent of Schools Mary Jo O'Connor.

RE: Your Future.

I'd tell you this in person if I could, but your secretary told me Monday that you've been instructed by John Coyne, chairman of the Portland School Committee, to stop talking to the media. And while Coyne wants all press calls forwarded to him, he's apparently decided not to return them.

So I'll say it here. You need to resign.

I say this reluctantly. Truth be told, I've always found you to be a pleasant, conscientious public servant committed to making Maine's largest school system the best it can possibly be.

But the longer this $2.5 million budget boo-boo festers, the more obvious it becomes that your ability to do your job is slipping away faster than an outgoing tide from Back Cove.

Consider all that's happened since you announced that a "perfect storm" of evaporating revenue and over-the-top costs had left Portland's schools in fiscal crisis.

Your finance director, Richard Paulson, resigned after acknowledging that $900,000 in payments for city services had gone unrecorded. You called that a "courageous act." Others called it a "no brainer."

Your bosses, the School Committee, decided to meet with you behind closed doors to find out, at long last, who does what in your office. A court hearing will be held Friday to help determine if that action violated Maine's right to know law.

The Portland Education Association, in a laudable display of common sense, has urged that you hold off on hiring 35 new teachers for the coming school year until you're sure you can pay for them. No word yet on whether you'll take the union's advice.

You've declared that financial management was never your "core competency" in the first place and suggested that heretofore, City Hall and the School Committee relieve you of all that number crunching.

In response, City Manager Joe Gray has proposed a "Memorandum of Understanding" that transfers oversight of your financial operation to the city but notes, in no uncertain terms, that "decisions on educational policy and any adjustments to the school budget will continue to be the responsibility of the Superintendent and the School Committee."

Gray wants you to sign that thing pronto. We don't know if you plan to do so because, well, you're no longer talking.

All of which leads us to the most glaring reason you should step down now -- and not wait for the results of an independent investigation that will inevitably lay this entire comedy of errors at your doorstep.

The superintendency of Portland's schools is, first and foremost, a leadership position. And to lead effectively, you need to demonstrate first that you know what you're doing and second that you can navigate the political currents that inevitably swirl around the job.

With all due respect, Madame Superintendent, you have demonstrated neither. Consequently, as the first day of classes fast approaches, public confidence in the city's school system is at an all-time low.

Two weeks ago, you said in an interview with this newspaper that "if I thought for one minute that my resigning would stabilize this organization, I would walk away today."

That day is here.

Columnist Bill Nemitz can be contacted at 791-6323 or at:

bnemitz@pressherald.com