BROCKTON — Christopher Correia, second-in-command for finance at Brockton Public Schools, has filed his long-awaited whistleblower lawsuit against the city.

Correia's 13-page complaint makes serious allegations against the city, Superintendent Mike Thomas, Mayor Robert F. Sullivan and James Cobbs, the former acting superintendent.

The lawsuit claims Correia suffered retaliation because he "brought forward complaints involving the misappropriation of funds and illegal spending by multiple City of Brockton officials including, but not limited to, Superintendent Michael Thomas."

Since shortly after the overspending scandal became public, Correia, Schools Chief Financial Officer Aldo Petronio and Thomas have been on paid administrative leave while multiple investigations and audits play out. Each continues to make more than $230,000 per year.

Jobs and contracts that Correia says were the reason for the budget deficit

Correia claims he began sounding the alarm internally about multi-million dollar deficits in July 2022. That's more than a year before it became public that the schools were $14.4 million in the hole. Assistant CFO Correia cited a now-familiar list of reasons for the overspending (a spike in the number of homeless students, out-of-district transportation costs and mismanagement at the schools' transportation department.)

But he blamed the bulk of the fiscal 2023 shortfall on one thing: "... what appears to be the most significant impact to the current budget...

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