Hiring a New England Patriots Super Bowl champion as the head coach of the Brockton High School football team raised the eyebrows of a law firm charged with investigating an $18 million budget shortfall in the city’s public schools.

Boston-based law firm Nystrom, Beckman & Paris slammed Brockton’s former superintendent Michael Thomas, who it said described himself as “not a numbers guy,” and how he allegedly “circumvented hiring protocols” – creating positions for friends and those he was connected to.

In a scathing report released this week, the firm highlighted the hiring of former New England Patriot Jermaine Wiggins as “another example” of Thomas’ questionable hiring decisions.

Thomas tapped Wiggins as Brockton High’s head football coach in April 2023, replacing Peter Colombo who led the program since the late 1960s. The superintendent then went on medical leave months later, that August.

The glaring budget deficit, which Nystrom, Beckman & Paris attributed to “overspending … caused by structural failures,” came to light around the time Thomas went on leave.

“We did NOT find evidence of misappropriation of funds by any City or School Department employee. We found no evidence of financial fraud, theft, or related criminal conduct,” the report states.

Wiggins, a co-host on WEEI’s morning sports radio show, had zero coaching experience and was not a member of the Brockton Education Association at the time of his hiring.

An agreement between the teachers’ union and Brockton School Committee establishes a stipend amount for coaching positions and preference “shall be given to a (union member) when (he/she) has equal or greater qualifications than another applicant.”

Wiggins, a tight end who helped the Patriots win their first Super Bowl in the 2001 season, received a draft contract before he was hired that listed him as a “Mentor and Head Football Coach” at a salary of $100,000, according to Nystrom, Beckman & Paris’ report.

“Thomas offered him the position and explained that: ‘Coach Wiggins [is] getting the same contracted stipend that anyone that got this job would have received,’” the report states.

It’s a narrative presented to the public, with Thomas responding to an inquiry in May 2023 that Wiggins was set to “receive a $15,388.61 stipend.”

“To make matters worse, Thomas sought to use grant monies to cover Wiggins’s salary,” the report states. “BPS applied for the Shannon Grant, which is designed to ‘help youth between the ages of 10 and 24 who are at risk for gang involvement.’”

In a grant proposal, officials highlighted how Wiggins would mentor more than a thousand high school student-athletes

“Wiggins’s contract, however, did not include such mentoring services,”  the report states.

James Cobbs directed the district to “withdraw the grant application” shortly after taking over as acting superintendent last year, informing Wiggins that BPS “could not pay him $100,000, but could only offer him the stipend that every other head coach received,” the report states.

After Cobbs negotiated with the teachers’ union to allow Wiggins to stay on as coach at the stipend amount, Wiggins agreed to fulfill his coaching duties.

“In short, Superintendent Thomas often did as he pleased when it came to hiring,” Nystrom, Beckman & Paris wrote in its report. “He spent school funds without considering the impact of his spending on the budget or the rules. He made unilateral decisions, stifled opposition, and concealed the impact of his decisions from the School Committee and the public.”

The Wiggins Era at Brockton High lasted less than a year.

In Wiggins’ only season, the team went 3-8, which included a 1-5 start. The Boxers did not beat a team with a winning record and lost in blowout fashion to Barnstable, Andover and Pinkerton Academy of Derry, N.H.

At the time of hiring, many within the institution told the Herald that Wiggins’ journey from humble beginnings in East Boston, on the field and off, impressed them, and he had a voice that could reach Brockton’s young athletes.

“We’re setting a standard that’s very high,” Wiggins had told the Herald. “We want to win. We want to win a championship. That’s what we’re trying to do: win a Super Bowl. So those are the expectations that we’re setting for ourselves, and the first day of practice is when you start working towards that.”