Another 4 hour RIH BOE Board meeting last night, complete with plenty of drama and sniping between board members.
Here are the critical take aways (IMHO):
The auditor presented the Financials for the year ended June 2023. There was no mention of the $4.2 mil surplus that has been talked about at recent meetings. When asked about it, the Interim Business Administrator did not specify how it arose, and basically said taxpayers should be happy that the district has that extra money to do capital projects without doing referendums.
There was no board discussion about the new Curriculum Director Melissa Quackenbush on the agenda for $199K per year. I did find out after the meeting that there will be something in her contract about her consulting business (so her business will not take away from her ability to fill the CD role in our district). The motion passed unanimously.
There was no Board discussion about the Demographic Study and how it would or would not help solve the enrollment disparity issue (but some Board members still want to hire a Communications firm to solve the issue). The motion passed unanimously.
There were $6.7 mil in capital projects on the agenda. The one that generated the most Board discussion and public comment was the one for Wellness Suites. Members of the public continued to question why we need to address student mental health and why we need to spend money to do so. If you value having mental health programs and services available to our students, you may want to come to Board meetings and visibly support these programs (again). There were a few no votes on some of the projects (Kim Ansh was the one I recall), but the motions for the capital projects all passed.
The proposed change to Board Policy 0155 to ‘force’ Board members to accept committee assignments failed with a 4-5 vote (Sullivan, Ansh, Emmolo and Mariani voted in favor and Bogdansky, DeLaite, King, Koulikouris and Lorenz voted against). There was some discussion and it was noted that the policy change had absolutely no teeth, as a Board President (obviously) cannot force fellow Board members to do things they don’t want to do. Hopefully next year’s BOE will function better than this year’s did under Judy Sullivan and this will not be an issue.
LEGAL FEES: Vivian King brought to light an item on the agenda (F6) which included a transfer of $171,000 from various budgeted accounts into the legal budget, to cover the excessive legal bills the Board has generated this year. This means the Board is taking money from other areas to cover their legal fees. The Interim Business Administrator noted that the monthly board counsel bills have been around $44K (this projects to $528K for the year). The previous board counsel - removed by the Board due to supposed 'fiscal concerns' - had charged only $113K for the full year. The legal fee budget for the 2023-2024 year was $181K and apparently it has already been exceeded in 4 months by October (the year began July 1)! The budget transfer documents that funds are being removed from other areas of the district to cover the Board’s excessive legal fees. It is only a matter of time before monies are transferred directly away from student areas to cover the Board’s mismanagement of legal costs. Several Board members voted no on purchase orders for specific legal payments. I subsequently asked one of them why, and was told that they (the one Board member) did not receive answers to the questions they had and thus voted not to pay until their questions were answered.
And lastly, as I predicted at the beginning of the meeting, Mariana Emmolo once again walked in a motion to hire a specific Superintendent Search firm HYA, and once again the motion failed with a 4-5 vote (Sullivan, Ansh, Emmolo and Mariani voted in favor and Bogdansky, DeLaite, King, Koulikouris and Lorenz voted against).
Mr. Bogdansky then introduced a new motion to put out an RFQ for a Superintendent Search Firm, with a response date of Dec 31, so that the NEW Board can evaluate, interview and choose a Search Firms and own the process in January. The motion passed 8-0-1 with Vivian King abstaining.