It's Time for a Numbers Man.
- Naked Conch - Posted by Matt Gardi - Jan 22, 2012
Yes, I know we just took away the voters ability to elect a Superintendent, relying instead on our five School Board Members to select the chief administrator of our school district. But a guy can dream can't he? Why would I encourage our School Board to recruit McVeigh for the top dog of our schools?
Aside from the fact he is a smart accountant with high level real world private sector experience, and aside from the fact he's a likable guy with great communications skills who has worked tirelessly serving on the Schools Audit and Finance Committee, his latest comments regarding budgeting for Charter School enrollment illustrates the fact that he "gets it." You can read about it in an excellent write up by Sean Kinney of the Keynoter here.
The article also illustrates the shortcomings of the most recent School administrators and their approach to budgeting. It covers the "latest" excuse for a budget issue being caused by not budgeting for the worst case scenario, and the result being the need to notify the State that the School District has dropped below the three percent cash reserve threshold, steering the ship dangerously close to a State take over.
Recall that during last year's fiscal fiasco, Superintendent Jesus Jara had suggested that he had "cut to the bone." But then, as this year's fiscal folly unfolded, Jara suggested that NOW he would really start cutting?!!? Really? It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that if you plan for the worst, and things get better, then you actually have a windfall, versus the standard routine run by our gurus of education of continually ignoring reality, budgeting for unrealistically optimistic projections, and then getting stuck in a self created "crisis."
McVeigh appropriately states the obvious when he says, "When you're budgeting in a situation like this, you've got to budget the cost side at the worst case scenario. Budget estimates are always going to be off. There's always going to be negative surprises. You've got to be prepared if you're going to provide quality education to the students."
That's why I'm calling for placing McVeigh at the helm, it's time. Before we just assume Jara stays on at the end of his term, and before Andy Griffiths heads off for training and fires up his array of consultants to assist in a "search" for the best and brightest to lead the schools, let's take advantage of a known resource we have right in front of us. It's time to look past leaders with an "Education" background and bring in a numbers guy like McVeigh until the fiscal house is back in order. All the well intended education policy in the world is useless if we keep stumbling from financial crisis to financial crisis, unable to reasonably plan for the future.
To top it off, today when I spoke to McVeigh about the idea, he said he'd take the job for $80,000.
- Naked Conch - Posted by Matt Gardi - Jan 22, 2012
Yes, I know we just took away the voters ability to elect a Superintendent, relying instead on our five School Board Members to select the chief administrator of our school district. But a guy can dream can't he? Why would I encourage our School Board to recruit McVeigh for the top dog of our schools?
Aside from the fact he is a smart accountant with high level real world private sector experience, and aside from the fact he's a likable guy with great communications skills who has worked tirelessly serving on the Schools Audit and Finance Committee, his latest comments regarding budgeting for Charter School enrollment illustrates the fact that he "gets it." You can read about it in an excellent write up by Sean Kinney of the Keynoter here.
The article also illustrates the shortcomings of the most recent School administrators and their approach to budgeting. It covers the "latest" excuse for a budget issue being caused by not budgeting for the worst case scenario, and the result being the need to notify the State that the School District has dropped below the three percent cash reserve threshold, steering the ship dangerously close to a State take over.
Recall that during last year's fiscal fiasco, Superintendent Jesus Jara had suggested that he had "cut to the bone." But then, as this year's fiscal folly unfolded, Jara suggested that NOW he would really start cutting?!!? Really? It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that if you plan for the worst, and things get better, then you actually have a windfall, versus the standard routine run by our gurus of education of continually ignoring reality, budgeting for unrealistically optimistic projections, and then getting stuck in a self created "crisis."
McVeigh appropriately states the obvious when he says, "When you're budgeting in a situation like this, you've got to budget the cost side at the worst case scenario. Budget estimates are always going to be off. There's always going to be negative surprises. You've got to be prepared if you're going to provide quality education to the students."
That's why I'm calling for placing McVeigh at the helm, it's time. Before we just assume Jara stays on at the end of his term, and before Andy Griffiths heads off for training and fires up his array of consultants to assist in a "search" for the best and brightest to lead the schools, let's take advantage of a known resource we have right in front of us. It's time to look past leaders with an "Education" background and bring in a numbers guy like McVeigh until the fiscal house is back in order. All the well intended education policy in the world is useless if we keep stumbling from financial crisis to financial crisis, unable to reasonably plan for the future.
To top it off, today when I spoke to McVeigh about the idea, he said he'd take the job for $80,000.
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