Dear Editor:
Sometimes Jefferson City Public School actions and expenditures defy logic. Leadership of the School Board doesn't seem to want transparency. Live or delayed broadcast of school board meetings should be easy and cheap; our Cole County Commission and Jefferson City Council have accomplished this feat.
Kudos to Larry Linthacum in his dealing with divided school board opinions. It is sad the school board had to do a survey just to figure out how they felt about each other.
We have been told our school system is operating in a deficient spending mode and yet we sent 28 teachers to a conference in Orlando at a cost of around $36,000 this past summer. Is this a little extravagant in tight budget times?
Our school board president sent a fellow board member to Washington, D.C., to lobby legislators in July at a cost of about $1,400. Could this not have been done at our legislator's local offices?
Prior Superintendent Mitchell combined the duties of general counsel and human resources director. The person received a significant raise to assume these duties, which included preventing harassment and lawsuits. Recently, these duties were split again and an interim human resources person received a $10,000 raise. The person losing duties, for some inexplicable reason, also got a pay raise.
This person is only doing general counsel duties now and gets paid over $166,000 annually. This salary seems extravagant considering what most salaried lawyers make in Jefferson City.
This person was over human resources and general counsel for when teachers were harassed and fired. These teachers recently sued JCPS and won judgments in excess of $700,000. Perhaps a salary decrease, no raise, and discipline were more appropriate actions?
Now JCPS is considering buying land adjacent to their current school at a cost of $206,500. This might be a good deal but, it seems we should have a plan for its use, before the purchase.
We don't even know if we are to have one or two schools or where they will be located. In addition, we already own $3 million in other land on Mission Drive we are not currently using.
These questionable actions/expenditures seem to defy logic at a time when we are supposedly short on money and yet are trying to be transparent. This does not seem to be the way to run a multi-million dollar operation.