School Board Perks
- on 06.23.06
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Here is a new perk for school board members; get hired by the school district making $101,000. This is just another example of how bloated bureaucracies works.
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Huntley District 158 board members hired one of their own Wednesday night to fill a newly created, top administrative position. Board member Glen Stewart will take over July 1 as the district’s chief operations officer, a position created after the March resignation of assistant superintendent Mike Kortemeyer. Stewart, who will receive a starting salary of $101,000, will be responsible for overseeing the district’s transportation, food service, operations and maintenance and health services departments. Board member Larry Snow, the only person on the seven-member board to vote against the appointment, lambasted the district for hiring one of its elected representatives. “It’s just political patronage,” Snow said. “Friends giving a friend a high-paying job because he’s out of work. “I simply can’t believe there’s not another, more qualified candidate that applied for the position,” Snow said. “This hiring policy is a sham.” |
People complain about the patronage of Mayor Daily and Governor Blagojevich, will they complain about this as well. They should, it is their tax money being paying for this.
[...] A board attempting to rebuild public trust should be erring on the side of extensive explanations to the public and infinite patience in answering questions. And given it laid a major portion of the responsibility on its previously hired administrative leaders, it had better be able to show the public why and how its personnel judgment is above reproach now. To our mind, it hasn’t done so, and the coincidence of hiring a sitting board member who happened to be unemployed does little to answer that question of hiring judgment. If anything, it raises more questions, questions a board trying to restore its credibility simply cannot afford. [...]