Who’s in charge of MDUSD budget?
April 23, 2008
The MDUSD blog of Gary Eberhart and Paul Strange have posted another article critical of Supervisor McHenry. This time over questions about the budget and the breathtaking statements from the Supe such as, “I don’t have an actual role in budget development.” Hello?
Paul Strange, the author of the article asks, “What is wrong with the system that the Superintendent is not immediately notified of a $2.7 million error in the budget?”
What could be wrong, Paul, is the board of directors of responsible organizations typically have a better handle on the operations of its firm. Maybe it’s the board that needs to be replaced as well; with elected members more qualified to listen to the community instead of the teachers’ union and Sacramento bigwigs, as well as provide better organizational and financial oversight and direction to the management and staff?
Corporate culture always starts at the top.
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3 Responses to “Who’s in charge of MDUSD budget?”
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BGR - you are absolutely right. We need to change the majority on the board so that we can have a Board who actually holds the Superintendent accountable. A board that requires the Superintendent to provide board members the information they need to assess the district’s finances.
I would say that Gary Eberhart and I have gone to extreme lengths to listen to our community. We have had meetings all over the district with hundreds of parents and community members (and I am not talking about the district’s community meetings, but the meetings with just Gary and me). We have a blog that gets pretty good traffic, presumably from our community. We also very much cover both sides of the issues - in fact, if it was not for me, there would be no one responding to recent assertions that we have millions of dollars currently available for employee compensation (see http://mdusd.blogspot.com/2008/04/ending-fund-balances-and-reality.html). Trust me, this article has not made our union representatives happy, but I believe we are all better off if the facts are actually out in front of people for consideration.
You are right, corporate culture starts at the top - the culture we support is progressive strategies to serve students, full transparency, empowerment of our community, strategic planning, efficiency and budget accountability. I don’t know what more we can do to try to change the culture – until there is a change in the board majority, that is.
Through our blog and our direct manner of answering questions, we have increased the transparency already. We have made simple changes like making the audio of the meetings available to the public on the web and providing access to the full budget packet so that everyone has access to all of the information (the district was forced to do the same with the agendas, months after we started doing it). We have listened to our community and found that they don’t trust the current administration.
I hope you’ll be there to support change in our district – it is time and time is running out.
It is the lack of accountability that makes so many people reluctant to throw more money at the problem. With guys like this in charge, I don’t ever see any kind of a tax increase being approved by the voters. We want to see someone satisfactorily manage the money they’ve already got before asking for more.
I would just like to mention that when you say we need, “elected members more qualified to listen to the community…” there are already two members who are doing this quite well. As a student in the MDUSD I received the utmost respect and help from both Paul Strange and Gary Eberhart. These two individuals have proven themselves to be true supporters of education, making decisions that will benefit students, parents, and school faculty. They take their time to make our schools better and I am appreciative of the effort they have put into reforming the Mount Diablo Unified School District.