Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Superintendent buyouts: Waste of money and often lack in transparency

Mt. Lebanon made today's Trib article, Legislators target buyouts for superintendents.  Remember the Sable buyout?

The state Senate Education Committee on Tuesday unanimously approved a bill that would limit the value of buyouts for public school superintendents and require that officials detail severance packages up-front in contracts, instead of allowing school boards to negotiate them at the end.
Does anyone remember if our superintendent's contract details a severance package?

James Fraasch, a former Mt. Lebanon School Board member, said that district board's decision in executive session in 2004 to pay more than $500,000 to buy out former Superintendent Margery Sable was one of the main reasons he sought election in 2006.
"That definitely raised my eyebrows," Fraasch said. "I don't know if this law would have stopped what happened, but it would have been much more difficult to do in the dark," he said, referring to the executive session. "I always felt the more the information the public has the better."
Absolutely, James!  You always believed in transparency. But if you were still on the board, Josephine would be livid with you right now.  Or at least you would have gotten an email asking if there was anything she needed to know about the interview.

PS The people in Scranton are reading about us too! Make buyouts bit less super

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Ms. Posti and board member Birks encourage you to watch and listen to the Pennsylvania School Board Association's video called "Stand Up for Public Education" and pay rapt attention.
I suspect they'll be forwarding us the second title in the series "Stand Up and Empty Your Wallets for Educators" just about any day now. LOL

Make a big stink about charter and online schools, PSBA. Don't though involve yourselves with silly items like half million plus buyouts. Yeah sure, its for the kids!

Giffen Good