Saturday, August 06, 2005

Sad news

Over at The Outpost site, an anonymous commenter posted this profound thought:

It's not the 6,000 votes that typically vote "no" in Billings' school mill levy elections that bother me. It is the fewer than 4,000 voting "yes." With 16,000 students, and at least one parent of each student, it's sad to see such apathy. Maybe parents don't see the needs. There's a lot of work to be done, isn't there?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I don't think it's a case of not seeing or appreciating the need as it is a case of SD2 having demonstrated some amount of fiscal irresponsibility and lack of planning. I'd have voted 'yes' on the levy if they'd done a better job of not only making their case, but giving me some reason to believe they wouldn't just waste the money.

Anonymous said...

Touche. It is interesting to read the recent SD2 agendas and find that in the personnel arena: the district is not replacing the HR Director, but rather promoting a long time administrative assistant, someone with much experience having worked under several SD2 HR Directors. It sounds like this person doesn't have a college degree so the new position is being created so as not to require one: HR "manager" is the new title and it comes with a raise too. In another office, the business manager was relieved of "district clerk" duties when SD2 hired a .5FTE district clerk, the business manager then gained a brand new subordinate FTE, since they had an FTE available they said (HR?) with the title "business analyst" at $19.50/HR, AND the "b.m." gets himself an approximate $10k salary increase--up to about $82k (must make twice the subordinate?) supposedly to keep pace with other district business managers. Some long time payroll clerks get new job titles and raises: they are now called payroll "accountants" for about $2 more per hour, and the new job title carefully does not require a college degree (since I'm guessing the incumbent employees don't have them.) In the technology department, 2 new FTE's were created in the last school year, each paying about $21/HR. These positions are called "network managers" and were filled by promoting currently employed technicians. These middle managers are receiving raises and promotions based on presence, or by comparison, not because of any measurable performance improvements or by personally advancing their skill set, or because a superior documented a need. All this and the district still has no real change in the number of children it educates. Amazing.

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