Yeah, something a bit local, which I do not do much of, but, anyhow, let’s put this in context: Republicans had captured control of the Wake County School Board, and looked to do a few things, which included doing away with “diversity” busing all over the county (which was really based on economic diversity rather than race), pushing for more local schooling, and reducing all the constantly changing school assignments. Then, Democrats regained control, and immediately fired the guy in charge of making things happen, Tony Tata, for no reason other than the Dems didn’t like him. So, now their is no school superintendent. What to do, what to do?
(WRAL) Nearly four months after firing Tony Tata, the Wake County Board of Education on Tuesday took the first step toward finding a new superintendent to lead North Carolina’s biggest school district by hiring a search firm.
The board approved a motion to hire Omaha, Neb.-based McPherson & Jacobson, LLC, a move that will cost the school system about $45,000. Details of the firm’s bid to lead the search were not made available Tuesday.
First of all, they couldn’t spend that money on a North Carolina company? Second of all, imagine what $45k could have done for the school system. Just another case of elected officials, particularly Democrats, making decisions that waste taxpayer dollars.
My local City Council just did something similar. In order to replace a City Manager, they looked to people in the city for experience to be a basic search committee.
The Committee received over 50 applications and whittled them down to 12 applicants they thought would be good for the city to interview.
The City Council found out one of the applicants had an issue that was not caught by the search committee so they decided to hire a head hunting firm for $21,500.
We are a small town and $21K is not easily found in the budget, but they went with it.
It is infuriating when you have people within a city that have the knowledge and expertise and are willing to do the job and the city goes outside.
The funny thing is that they will now complain about people not volunteering and helping the city.
Interestingly, there are people who are professional city managers. Your city council could have easily solved the problem by calling some other city managers in the surrounding towns and asked “hey, who’s available?” Yet, elected officials who think they Know Better.
Not only are there “professional city managers,” there are courses of study and degrees for it.
The City Council is requiring a masters degree in the field.
It is a good paying job as well – over 100K.
Good lord. but then, its not real money, right?
And, its not theirs anyway, so not like it matters.
[…] could have been worse. Our friend William Teach at the Pirate’s Cove reports that the Wake County School Board (North Carolina) was given two bids by two different firms to […]
“so now their is no school superintendent” ahhhhhh THERE
sort of funny in an article about education
Well the good news is that poor Tony Tate got a 250 grand severance check. Teach the Wake County problem has to do with class disparity. The county has a poor urban/upscale suburban mix and the busing needed for equality upset many. Tony did get rehired quickly in a cush state job, he did get rehired by the Repubs in a cush state job.
Also, the sentence “First of all, they couldn’t spend that money on a North Carolina company” is a declarative sentence and requires a period for punctuation not a question mark.
But maybe the main point was shown, money in education has been wasted.
John,
You should be the last person in the world to start going “grammar nazi” on people.
awww.. give him a chance. It sounds like he is back on his meds and becoming somewhat lucid.
And he IS using punctuation now. It’s a vast improvement. We are having an affect.