TUF

BOE News The Good, The Bad ...

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On July 26, 2007 the BOE announced the new Superintendent Edward Seto. He comes highly recommended and was the unanimous selection of the BOE. We link to his biography and wish him luck. We are told that his salary will be $190,000 with a $5,000 merit bonus. TUF is cautiously excited about the choice. This may be just what the school system needs and we may look back on this as a new beginning.

At the same meeting however we were disturbed by the new hire of an assistant to the Director of Personnel Services. The Director of Personnel Services is involved with all new hires. For sometime he has requested an assistant. According to BOE member Bernard Siegel, the Personnel Dept. is the second busiest office in school system (no mention of the busiest). The assistant position was approved earlier this year with a salary of $50,000.

At the July 26th meeting the last item on the agenda was approximately 80 new hires. The intention was for all hires to be approved as a single vote. The new hire list was not provided to the BOE until it was time for the vote. Members had about five minutes to review it.

Kudos to BOE member David Burns who caught one hire that stood out. That was the hire of the Assistant to the Director of Personnel Services. He noted that the person being hired was Brian Bonanno, former BOE Vice President that was voted out of office 15 months ago. Mr. Burns also noted that the salary was not $50K but $63K. Ms. LaCorte joined in with Mr. Burns in vocally objecting and asking that this one hire be delayed. Burns pointed out that when the public hears of this there will be outrage.

Maybe this was entirely legitimate but pushing through a new hire of “an old friend” without prior notice or at least special attention being brought to it does have, at the very least, the appearance of a conflict of interest. We find it disturbing that the post was budgeted for $50K yet was awarded at 26% over budget.

The appointment passed five to four with Nagy, Jordan, Siegel, Mettler and Holzheimer in favor and Burns, LaCorte, Pietrucha and Unger opposed. The four BOE members that voted against the hire wanted at least to postpone that hire in question until they could find out more. The other five members didn’t even want to wait. The most stated reason from the majority in favor was, “not wanting to hold things up.”

TUF is not saying Mr. Bonanno is not appropriate for the position. In fact we have found Mr. Bonanno to be very intelligent and knowledgeable. He may even be worth the extra money. But when you add together an ex-BOE member, the last minute notification, one of 80 names, and $13K over budget it flat looks bad.

If we assume that the person and salary are justified, given the unusual circumstances at the very least administration should have gone out of the way to let BOE members know it was coming. Better, let the public know of the unusual hire and wait for public comment.

The good news, it appears that at least some BOE members are beginning to get it. The bad news, it appears the majority still does not.