Friday, May 13, 2011

May 9, Part 2: Ramona Tyson's report on the 2004 Ernst & Young audit and plans for a new audit

(Transcribed from the Monday, May 9 board business meeting.)

"A high level of events have occurred regarding the 2003 audit. Documents were provided on March 14. Goal is always to remain transparent and open. Although I had been led to believe that the staff had reviewed all of the documents collected related to the E&Y study in advance of that meeting, in fact, it was found that staff had only reviewed roughly 60% of the documents in our possession before I made the presentation. After learning that there were documents in our possession that were related to the study that had not been reviewed, and therefore I asked general counsel Sutherland, Asbill and Brennan to review all of the documents related to the study. In addition, upon my request, I also asked Sutherland to contact Ernst & Young direct, as representatives of the board of education and ask them to provide copies of documents related to the engagement that would have been amongst the documents provided to the school system during the course of the engagement. Ernestine (sic) and Young has provided the school system with a limited number of responsive documents in its possession. It is true that none of the 12 members from the study’s guidance team back in 2003-2005 are still employed by the district. Therefore, without any first-hand witnesses, what we know about the study remains limited to what we can determine from the documents, the emails and the other correspondence we have assembled. But we do now have a fuller picture of what transpired. The full set of documents shows the following series of events:

The district advertised an RFP for a compensation and classification study in the summer of 2003 and on September 8th, 2003, the board selected Ernst & Young to perform a study at a cost of $341,000. The initial scope of work for the project called for Ernst & Young to review the district’s entire employee compensation and classification system to develop a more streamlined and efficient classification system and to compare the district’s compensation levels to those of surrounding districts. E&Y commenced the work on the study and you have been provided with various reports the board received showing E&Y’s progress. We have identified additional status reports which are included in the revised chronology. It appears that in April, 2004, E&Y provided a preliminary estimate of cost of implementing E&Y’s recommendation. This preliminary estimate indicates that the district may have been overpaying more than 2,000 positions by more than $14 million and underpaying other positions. However, a cursory review indicates that E&Y’s assumptions were not compliant to the salary administration guidelines as required by the Georgia Department of Education for some positions, ie; teachers and media specialists.

DCSS now has possession of back up documentation for the estimate, as well as various summaries and breakdowns of the estimate. The information is being provided to the press. It is worth noting that Jim Landry, who was heading up the project for E&Y is quoting (sic) as describing the estimate as incorrect and very misleading because it was too early and preliminary to give an accurate report. In addition, the DCSS staff (unintelligible) stated that the estimate was a scattershot, and that it was not uncommon for the estimates to be revised more than a dozen times during the course of study such as the one undertaken by E&Y. This preliminary estimate appears to have been the source of most of the speculation in the press that E&Y made a final report showing the difference between the district’s actual compensation and what E&Y recommended that compensation should be. The preliminary report estimated that the district was paying some of its staff in excess of E&Y’s proposed salary ranges, but it also estimated that the district was paying others below the proposed ranges. Albeit not to the same extent. E&Y made several refinements to this cost estimate, but as I’ll discuss, it appears that no final cost and analysis was ever completed.

By spring of 2005, E&Y had largely completed its proposed redesign of the district’s classification system and was apparently still working on the other phase of the project. In other words, E&Y was still trying to determine how the district’s compensation levels compared to those in surrounding districts. But rather than completing that second phase of the project, it appears that the district and E&Y negotiated a reduced scope of work. Although several emails around this time period referred to there being a reduced scope of work, we do not have any documents showing exactly what changes were made. What we do know is that E&Y proceeded to finalize its proposed design of the employee classification system and it provided its final deliverables in August or September of 2005. Those deliverables included a documentation manual describing the methodology and the results of the study. As I reported in March, March 14, 2011, the documentation manual does not contain an analysis comparing the district’s compensation to the compensation of surrounding districts. And as far as we can determine, no such analysis was ever completed. We infer, that the reduced scope of work eliminated this phase of the study from E&Y’s project requirements. Therefore it appears that E&Y never created a final version of the preliminary estimate that has been the focus of the media’s investigation.

In September, 2005, the board was presented with and approved the classification system recommended by E&Y. By this time, district staff had confirmed that E&Y had completed all of this work under the reduced scope of work and on January 12, 2006, the district authorized payment of E&Y’s final invoice. From the review of the information, again the compensation analysis was never completed.

Now today, as a part of the transitional plan, the next steps are to complete the following over the next 6-9 months with a direct focus on central office positions and administration salaries:
  • By May 30, 2011, we will develop a request for proposal to conduct a compensation study partnering either with a college or university or a company that specializes in organizational structure/compensation study.
  • By June, 2011, I will transition this plan to the new superintendent and I will include the documents that were found under the E&Y study for full disclosure and receipt to the new superintendent.
  • By the end of June we will ask the legal team to review the RFP.
  • By July of 2011, a public advertisement of the RFP will occur.
  • By August of 2011, the RFP will be acknowledged with vendors that will reply to that RFP.
  • By September of 2011, the RVP evaluation and vendor selection will occur.
  • And by October, board approval and award to such vendor.

All of this is subject to change dependent on the new superintendent, but I did want to give the board the complete commitment to follow through on the charge of seeing that the study is begun."

===
It was revealed in the Q&A that there will be four file boxes on the study in the board office for the board to review.

32 comments:

Cerebration said...

I hope you all noticed in the last note that "It was revealed in the Q&A that there will be four file boxes on the study in the board office for the board to review."

Amazing! They went from a binder full of info - to FOUR BOXES!

Open+Transparent said...

1) "In September, 2005, the board was presented with and approved the classification system recommended by E&Y."

POST IT ALL ONLINE!! NOW!!

2) Tom Bowen and Sarah Copelin-Wood were on the BOE during this time. They hold direct responsibility on this dragging on and purposedly being hid from the public.

3) Almost off the the higher level Central Office administrators now in place, Moseley, Thompson, Segovis, Ronald Ramsey, Harold Tucker, etc., were there and involved with this. They also hold direct responsibility on this dragging on and being hid from the public.

4) HERE IS THE KICKER: Ramona Tyson herself was in charge of MIS and Business & Administration during this time. These documents were inexcusably not saved electronically. When Tyson was head of Business and Administration, she let this project sit, even though hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent on it.

She said there was only a binder but now there's four boxes found.
Reminds me of missing in action CIS employee Jamal Edwards, paid for six months despite not showing, and Tyson not knowing he was MIA.

Tyson, the Central Office and the BOE have ZERO credibility when it comes to this issue. The DCSS Central office is incredibly bloated and almost all of them are grossly overpaid. Many BOE members have friends and family is high paying jobs in which they got despite not being properly qualified.

I'm very disappointed that new BOE members Jester and Edler are pushing more on this. I'm disappointed that self-declared famous businessman Paul Womack has ignored this issue.

It's more of the same old, same old. Only a new superintendent who will clean house and demand accountability and transparrency will get us out of this morass.

Cerebration said...

One point Ramona made actually shocked me. She said that none of the 12 people who worked on the original study in 04-05 work for DCSS today. They're all gone! To me, that's a big red flag that "someone" didn't like where that report was going and got rid of everyone involved. Everyone else (mentioned by O&T) now simply bat their eyes and insist they don't know anything - most likely because they see the writing on the wall.

BTW- what good will it do to sit 4 boxes of documents in the board office? Think any of the board members will bother to even take a peek?

teacher said...

Praying that we get a real superintendent who understands that the district needs a thorough cleansing and that the education of the children is the districts first priority.

I thought that the new board members would speak up more and ask for more transparency. I am disappointed by them and fear that the only way DCSS will change is if we are forced to by taking accreditation away. I believe in my heart that this would be the best thing to happen to DCSS, although I don't think that SACS has the guts to do it.

The waste and corruption in DCSS keeps growing as the players continue to have so much power. I can't just blame the citizens who voted so many incumbents in, as the new board members aren't that much better.

Cerebration said...

Tyson says, "Although I had been led to believe that the staff had reviewed all of the documents collected related to the E&Y study in advance of that meeting, in fact, it was found that staff had only reviewed roughly 60% of the documents in our possession before I made the presentation. "

Her very next sentence should have been, "and I have let all of these employees go due to the fact that they did not complete their task, lied to me about it and put me in an embarrassing predicament. I've been used and shamed by them and so I let them go for insubordination. They could not be trusted to do the work asked of them by me and the taxpayers of DeKalb."

teacher said...

I agree Cere. This is why Tyson cannot be superintendent any longer. I would also add, that the board of education should also be questioning why the employees did not do their entire job. Too many people are allowing things to slide and these things are adding up to waste and continuation of the what is wrong with DCSS.

Susan Curtis said...

I would bet that the reason for the employees not providing Ms. Tyson with everything from the study was NOT purposeful, but rather lack of organization. DCSS (in general) has too many people who do not work as a team/communicate. It also has no clear chain of command for different duties. Tis study was probably stored in many pieces in many places - and no one knew the broad picture. I don't think that this is acceptable, but I don't think all of the employees' motives were sinister. Not to say some people in DCSS aren't corrupt...

Cerebration said...

That's even worse.

Anonymous said...

What if the new BOE Members are really actually aking the right questions and are being bullied and facing dire threats and consequences from the "oldtimers" who are really thretened by the questions? What if it was Tom Bowen who sabotaged Dr. Cox's offer by leaking the negotiations to the press? (To me, he's the only one of the 3 "no" votes who makes sense as the "leak" and he's the one who sent the letter to the legislators without permsission of 3 others). What if... and then what do we do about it and what can we do about it? What if they (the BOE, and Tom Bowen in particular) really want to maintain the status quo and will do everything in their power to refuse to bring "real" candidates for superintendat to the "fore" and they "string" RT along (and she unwittingly cooperates and plays into their hands to maintain the status quo even though I really do believe she does not want the role of perm. superintendant)? How do we force the BOE to really hire a new, outside superintendant or get the press to really delve into why the last round was sabotaged....? Do tell....

Anonymous said...

Obviously, the board was willing to pay Johnny Brown $400,000 to go away rather than implement or finish this study.

Cerebration said...

What's interesting is that Ramona admits her staff withheld information before - but now we're supposed to believe that this is all of it. How are we to believe anything from this crew? Especially when she doesn't seem the least bit bothered by their insubordination, laziness and lying.

Atlanta Media Guy said...

The larger question is, will Sandy Spruill and the others, who have filed the FOIA's, get to look in the 4 boxes hermetically sealed in some board room at the Palace?

I agree with earlier poster, every document needs to be placed online NOW!

Does the DA have all of Crawford Lewis' computer files from this time? Could we see all of Clew's emails and documents regarding this audit? His report was scrubbed and he changed a whole bunch of job descriptions to justify the higher pay.

The writing is on the wall, I just wish our media could start investigating the criminal operation that DCSS has become.

Atlanta Media Guy said...

Satire, heard from outside the 500K office of the Super of DCSS.

Oops! Sorry, I lied Ms. Tyson, our team has not read all the documents, though we had you believe we had. I know what you said but the team does not think the leadership circle is going to like what Ernst & Young actually suggested.

I think I better start looking for work, Ms. Tyson.

Where the heck are the ethics boys? Mr. Ramsey, this Tyson bunch should be fired for lack of ethics! Lie to the boss..? what the heck is going on over there at the Palace. It's still Spring, the Palace is due for a cleaning.

Anonymous said...

So they just did part of the job, eh? What if teachers just taught part of the curriculum.

That is totally unacceptable. Its like paying full price for a car with no wheels.

This information is from the DCSS side which we have identified as corrupt long ago. I wonder what documents E&Y may be able to supply to fill in the gaps.

Cerebration said...

This is the AJC article on the subject at the time. This is what the current leaders are disputing or they are at least suggesting that E&Y changed their tune, however, nothing more was ever reported on the subject.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The (GA)
April 2, 2004
Section:: Metro News
Edition:: Home; The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Page:: D3
Study: DeKalb schools overpay workers
JEN SANSBURY
Staff

The DeKalb County School System overpays more than 2,500 nonteaching employees to the tune of $14.8 million, but officials said the district may not be able to address the issue in time to affect next school year's budget.

Ernst & Young consultant Jim Landry told school board members Thursday that some positions are "overvalued" and carry "inflated titles." He did not cite specific examples and took care to say the firm's findings are not intended to criticize the individuals in those jobs.

Landry emphasized that the figures are not final, but characterized the analysis as an "alarming" starting point.

The firm is conducting a comprehensive salary study and presented its analysis on the heels of a two-hour budget work session that focused on next year's pay raises.

About 35 percent of 7,355 full-time employees who are not in the classrooms appear to be paid above the maximum recommended pay range for their jobs. Only 233 employees are paid below appropriate pay ranges, which would cost about $325,000 to fix, he said.

Board Vice Chairwoman Bebe Joyner said the nearly $15 million figure is "kind of a shocker." "We've been accused of having way too many people in central office and paying way too much for a long time,
and it validates that," Joyner said. However, equalizing pay will be a slow process, she said.

The 98,000-student district also employs about 7,000 teachers. Landry said DeKalb's teacher pay scale is lower than some other metro Atlanta systems, but higher than the national market. It is not likely to need much adjustment, he said.

When a new structure is adopted, the district's 1,680 job titles will be cut in half, said Reanee Ivey, DeKalb's assistant director for affirmative development. Ernst & Young has been comparing job descriptions and actual duties based on questionnaires completed by thousands of employees.

"There have been elevations of people into jobs that really the overall market [indicates] what you should be paying is considerably less" than they are currently earning.

Employees will be able to appeal their new job classifications.

Board member Chip Franzoni, who chairs the budget committee, asked whether there would be
recommendations the board could adopt before it sets next year's property tax rate in June.

Superintendent Johnny Brown said that had been an "ambitious goal" of the district, but appeared unlikely. "I just think it would be too risky," he said. Brown has proposed a $727.2 million spending plan for 2004-2005. It is 3.5 percent higher than the current $702.5 million budget, but would not require a tax increase because rising property values will bring in more revenue. Teachers would get 2 percent cost-of-living raises and regular step increases in January, when state funding for raises is expected to come. State lawmakers have not approved an education budget yet. All other DeKalb employees, except the superintendent, would get a one-time 2 percent salary stipend in January.

The administration is proposing an early retirement incentive for up to 178 longtime employees in district-level jobs that would not have to be filled. About 140 have expressed interest, which could save the district $1 million to $3 million.

Photo: Board Vice Chairwoman Bebe Joyner says the nearly $15 million estimate is "a shocker."

Anon said...

My understanding of the vote for Cox is that we may not have the correct facts -- that the vote may have been more like 5 to 4 and that the information leaked about who was on what side was incomplete.

In addition, the desire to keep the status quo comes from many outsiders not just our current BOE and employees.

If you pay attention to everything going on in DeKalb, not just the schools, you will see that the schools are just another thing that is broken. Not the only thing.

Anonymous said...

did anyone see the paper today? Apparently principals will be required to fund art and music, but then have flexibility to deal with other staffing needs as funds are provided. My concern here is that there are special groups of students for whom the county receives additional funding (e.g., gifted students) that these schools are not either a)receiving from the district or b) that are being used to fund whole school initiatives rather than funding the programs that the state intends to be funded. In other words, I am well aware that there are some smaller schools that are ALREADY using gifted funds to fund whole school initiatives and which are not providing adequate gifted instruction for the students who are the source of such funds. From what the article says, the district understand that funding professionals to serve certain constituencies will not be fixed in the coming year. In other words, if you are at a gifted magnet, you are set, but if you are in a small school with a small number of gifted students (still haven't figured out the magic number, but apparently 80 isn't enough), receiving INSTRUCTION (not worksheets and extra work) for gifted students will still not occur.

Anonymous said...

Follow up to above question, does anyone have suggestions on how to fight this battle in a local school? A number of us have been asking for a year how the principal is directing funds to ensure gifted instruction, but we have no discovery teacher who is influencing the classroom. Instead the school is using the "cluster" model, and what the students are receiving is wholly inadequate...kids are bored and families are leaving. When I ask how the funds are benefiting the students, I'm simply stonewalled.
Suggestions, please????

Atlanta Media Guy said...

Cere, Maybe we need to start another thread regarding the gifted funding issue. If this is true, is there any legal recourse the parents or stakeholders can take?

Thanks for the AJC article, I love this paragraph;

Board Vice Chairwoman Bebe Joyner said the nearly $15 million figure is "kind of a shocker." "We've been accused of having way too many people in central office and paying way too much for a long time, and it validates that," Joyner said. However, equalizing pay will be a slow process, she said.

Slow process? It's more like NO process. Same people in the same rolls 7 years later. But guess what? Most are even paid more now. Heads should roll regarding the lies that Tyson's staff made to her.

Cerebration said...

Why not continue the gifted funding conversation we were having back in January? Add your comments to this thread:

Gifted and Magnet School Data Now Available

There is some very good data here.

Anonymous said...

Cere - thanks for unearthing the Sansbury article. When I read Ramona's nearly incomprehensible version of the saga of the compensation audit, I thought perhaps I'd been living in a parallel universe. But Jen's article is exactly as I remember things rolling out. Overpaying, outrage, shocked board members and promises of change. While it's possible E&Y was cut loose before their work was complete, they had already drawn enough conclusions that this body of data was indeed publicly released. And it was NEVER acted upon.

You know the story about the frog placed in the pot of water - how he hops out when placed in hot water, but will sit contentedly in cold water, even as the temperature rises to boiling, never noticing that he is in danger? Friends, we are the frog. Incompetence and illegalities we protested ten years ago are now common practice. If Ramona stays, homeschool cooperatives in DeKalb will spring up from Decatur to Smoke Rise. As for readers of this blog who actually believe RT has the experience and education to run this school system - just WOW. A candidate - black or white, male or female - with her credentials, ascending to top leadership would have been UNTHINKABLE even five years ago.

Anonymous said...

Cerebration,

The AJC article from 2004 you posted contained an interesting nugget of information: The budget for the 2003-2004 school year was $702.5 million.

We have more buildings yet the same number of students, but now our budget is $1.2 billion. So for a 70 PERCENT INCREASE IN THE BUDGET we have in return NO AYP FOR SIX YEARS.

To all the teachers: How many of you earn 70% more than you did in the 2003-2004 school year?

Anonymous said...

I appreciate your comments, media guy. The problem with going back to the January gifted post is that most folks aren't checking back to those older posts.

Also, to me this is a new issue because the funding formula is changing, so with the advent of ensuring all schools receive funds for these other programs (which, by the way I support), it is even more likely that schools with weak administrations who don't care about gifted kids (e.g., who believe they don't need any attention - regardless of state requirements) it is even MORE likely that these students will be short changed.

Clearly from the earlier posts, the county pulls in state funding for these students (1.66 fte instead of 1.03 for 3rd graders for example), then piles the money together. Funds are then provided to the schools without, from what I can see, any follow-up or specificity that these extra dollars go to provide actual programming to these students. At my elementary school, for example, another "program" - whole school - has been the beneficiary of these funds in terms of hiring personnel. But, teachers with 29 4th graders have been expected to "cluster" gifted students and provide gifted programming, when only 4-5 of those 29 students were gifted classified. Needless to say, these students were left to their own devices on the whole when they mastered material, so that the teacher could ensure the other students were prepared for the CRCT.

The cluster model is NOT working. Class sizes are getting larger and even less programming will be provided to these kids. The county CLEARLY doesn't care. The gifted coordination is left to the magnet coordinator at the county level. There is no concern about gifted kids unless they are at a magnet or a school with a large enough gifted population to warrant discovery. My school no longer has a discover teacher and the principal has indicated that "this is the model the county will be following in the next year at all schools." I am asking, is this bunk? or is it true? Is my principal just covering up, or is this the new story county wide? how do I help locally gifted kids, or do I give up and move out?

signed, now hopeless in dekalb

Cerebration said...

Steve, I could be wrong, but I think the $702.5 million was the general operations budget, which is usually thought of as "the budget". The $1.2 billion combines the general operating budget with the rest of the expenses for the system and you have the "consolidated budget". It's confusing - but you may want to download the proposed budget for 2012 and then bring back questions. As you will see, the general operations budget for 2012 is proposed to be $789 million. (The budget was not voted on at the last meeting, as the board decided to take more time to look it over -- now's the time to send them your suggestions!) Email to:

budget-suggestions@fc.dekalb.k12.ga.us

Proposed Consolidated Budget

I will compliment them in that this is the first time I've seen this level of detail in the proposed budget - for instance, check out the Special Revenue Categories. They also list budget vs actual history. And at the end of the report, you can see the FTE allocations by school.

For the operations budget alone, go here:

Proposed Operating Budget

teacher said...

I believe that you are correct. Many principals will only hire gifted certified teachers, so that they can get the extra funding. Many students who have the gifted label aren't really gifted. There are ways that the testing can be fudged to make a child "gifted" which makes parents happy and gets more funding for the school.

There will be no true gifted learning in DCSS if the model that classroom teachers are providing extra things for these gifted kids. A classroom teacher doesn't have the time with the large classrooms that they have.

I am not sure that you can help locally gifted children under the current model. I know many parents of highly intelligent children pulling their children out of DCSS, even if that means selling everything that they own to get their child a quality education. Until the community gets tired of our children not being educated, teachers can't stand alone. I did and was labeled a trouble maker. I am sure that my administrator had a party when I left.

Cerebration said...

This whole episode reminds me of a quote by Yogi Berra -

"We're lost but we're making great time."

Anonymous said...

I, for one, teach grammar every day to my high school students. Unfortunately, none of them, and I mean not one of them, has a solid grammar background from middle or elementary school.

I knew more grammar after sixth grade than many of my seniors know. I always tell them that, if the learn a foreign language, they need a good grammar background. I tell them that good sentence grammar requires them to think, think, think while they are expressing themselves in speech and writing. They should already know what they are saying or writing, but they must either think anew or process already existing grammar knowledge in order to express themselves logically and with coherence.

I've been through teacher preparation programs where we were warned not to teach grammar explicitly, but to give students little doses in mini-lessons of grammar that they encounter in their reading. This is such a destructive educational fad. The problem is, how can you teach a mini-lesson on one grammar issue when all the surrounds this small dose is an overwhelming void of grammar knowledge and skill?

Like all other educational fads it's gone to same sorry conclusion as the "cooperative learning" fad: "The teacher is only a facilitator!" Don't get me wrong, students can learn together with little teacher assistance, but only so much. When I went back to grad school, the mere mention of direct instruction was forbidden. Teachers must use direct instruction to impart new knowledge. Cooperative learning can supplement this, but it only a supplement.

The problem is, how can you teach a mini-lesson on one grammar issue when all the surrounds this small dose is an overwhelming void of grammar knowledge and skill?

Our public high schools are graduating students in "general college-prep" programs who can't write grammatically sophisticated constructions, who don't know the rules to self-correct, and who cannot comprehend grammatically sophisticated text.

I feel as though I'm swimming the Mississippi upstream at flood stage.

teacher said...

@ 1:14

I couldn't agree more. New reading/ELA series "embed" grammar. This means that little is taught, especially because most of this work requires photocopying and paper, something that we all know are scarce in DCSS and in many schools. Very little writing is even done in elementary school, as it requires a great amount of time for a teacher to look over, correct, and grade. Many times, teachers just give kids a grade, without helping them understand and correct their mistakes.

Many young teachers, don't have a firm grasp on grammar or writing themselves, so it's easier not to teach something that you're not good at or don't know than to muddle through it and get caught by a parent who is on the ball for not really understanding what they are teaching.

I will give it to the K12 online curriculum. They have a dedicated grammar book that is very extensive and helps children to understand the workings of the English language.

You are so right about understanding English well and learning a foreign language. My knowledge of English, always helped me to write and understand Spanish grammar when I was in high school.

I really fear for our children and our country. We are producing such undereducated people. The saying: A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, applies to many who are graduating high school from public schools and attending college.

Parents and citizens of America need to wise up to what is really happening and not happening in our schools and ask themselves is this what they want for their children. There are too many of our children sitting in schools who are functionally illiterate. Some are nice kids, don't cause a problem, and can't read. Then there are the problem makers, that act up, so that they don't have to read because they can't. There are more kids than you'd imagine with reading issues, yet our school district spends Title One money on coaches to make sure that teachers have work and standards posted. I don't see how anyone who says that they care about the children can see this as a good use of funds. We need teachers, pulling these kids out, helping them improve their skills, so that they can read, write, and critically think no matter what path in life they choose.

As I think about the superintendent position that is currently open and the curriculum/development position that we have interim in, I don't see why these positions need a person with a PhD or other administrative experience. I honestly believe that a group of our best teachers who also know how to budget their own finances, could better run the district than many of our current administrators with their advanced degrees and friends and family acquaintances. Too much emphasis is put on these advanced degrees and the more that I am around people with these higher degrees, the more worthless I see how many of the degrees they have aren't worth the paper that they are printed on.

Cerebration said...

teacher: I agree. And I think that is exactly what Quenterious Tolen (graduating student member of the board) meant in his farewell speech when he said,

We need a humble teacher to stand and lead us into the promised land of brotherhood.

Atlanta Media Guy said...

We need a teacher to run DCSS. We also need the bunch that has been around running things so they can keep their jobs as well as their friends and families jobs.

Folks, we must head to the palace and start protesting. The louder we are maybe, just maybe, the media will take notice and do some real investigative journalism.

It's time for these folks who lie, give out misinformation, and who do not respect the taxpayers or stakeholders of DeKalb County, to look for another job.

Please! BOE can we find someone with teaching experience, REAL teaching experience to lead our system out of the wilderness of crime and deceit?

South DeKalb Parent said...

What I found most interesting about the May 9th Board meeting was when Ms. Tyson kept stating the figures for overpayment, but then stated no figures for the underpayment. She simply kept reiterating that employees were also underpaid. Thank you for posting the contents of the AJC article. Nearly $15 million in overpayments to 2500 employees worries me considerably more than $325,000 in underpayments to 233 employees.

It is interesting when comparing the district's proposed, budgeted, and actual budgets for the available fiscal years. I have been creating and updating a spreadsheet for a few years now on my own and some of the categories are interesting, to say the least. I would like to know, for example, why in the General Operations budget the "Other Costs" subcategory under General Administration is regularly budgeted for around $1 million, but has had actual expenditures of more than $10 million for multiple years.

jmaciuba said...

1. Doesn't E&Y have a copy of the report, somewhere?
2.This is going on seven years of overpayments and, consequently, inflated pension payouts.
3.Pick a curriculum from a state at the top of the educational ladder and use it. Fire all the useless curriculum "experts."
4. Prepare for the next loser candidate.
5. Cobb County BOE should be ashamed of themselves for allowing such shameless double-dipping from their new superintendent candidate.