The top priority of any elected school board should be the education of a community鈥檚 children. That priority entails responsible stewardship of the school district鈥檚 finances. Not only is such stewardship necessary to continue educating children, but it鈥檚 also the public鈥檚 money 鈥 the public has a right to know that it鈥檚 being wisely spent.
Two public school districts in the area 鈥 51黑料 city and Francis Howell in St. Charles County 鈥 have recently failed dismally on that front. Both districts have allowed major expenditures of district money for purposes that don鈥檛 advance the education of children at all. And both are being less than transparent with the public about why.
The lack of transparency is especially egregious at Francis Howell. This year, the district hired a new superintendent who was supposed to start July 1, then paid him almost a quarter-million dollars as he left one month later without having worked a day. The school board now refuses to publicly explain that bizarre outcome.
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The district announced in March it had hired Mike Dominguez, then superintendent of Garden City Public Schools in Kansas, to take over as Francis Howell superintendent as of July, with a starting annual salary of $250,000.
But when July rolled around, the district announced Dominguez wouldn鈥檛 start as planned. Vaguely citing 鈥unforeseen circumstances,鈥 board members appointed the district鈥檚 deputy superintendent to run things on an interim basis until Dominguez could take over on ... well, they didn鈥檛 say.
The answer, as it turns out, was never.
On Aug. 1, the district announced that Dominguez 鈥 who at that point still hadn鈥檛 worked a day 鈥 was leaving under an agreement (approved unanimously by the board) that gave him a lump-sum payment of almost $230,000, or about 11 months worth of the agreed-upon salary for the job he never did.
As the Post-Dispatch鈥檚 Monica Obradovic reported, the severance agreement included a provision barring the district from commenting in any way on the reasons for Dominguez鈥檚 departure and fat severance check.
Good for Dr. Dominguez; bad for the district鈥檚 taxpayers. As if to add insult to financial injury, Dominguez landed a new job as assistant superintendent of an Oklahoma school district just three days after pocketing his severance check from Francis Howell.
It鈥檚 not unusual for school districts to withhold information about personnel matters, but this is, in a word, outrageous.
As Obradovic has reported, Dominguez鈥檚 hiring in the first place came under an unusually rushed process. And it happened just a month before an election ousted a conservative majority on the school board that had been trying to turn the district into a culture-war battlefield over racial issues and other hot-button topics.
Did the former board rush that hiring process to ensure their ideological footprint would remain on the district after they left? In rushing it, did they miss issues that would later prompt the district to cut a severance check rather than keep Dominguez on the job? Or, alternatively, did the new board just not like the superintendent their predecessors left them?
Whatever the reasons, none of this is justification for burning $230,000 in public money nor 鈥 worse 鈥 agreeing to hide details from the public.
The financial issues at 51黑料 Public Schools are less a new mystery than confirmation of a previously exposed failure: Missouri state Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick last week released an audit that found the district broke state law in doling out no-bid contracts and millions of dollars in staff bonuses, putting it on what he called a 鈥減erilous financial path.鈥
The findings stand as post-script to the cronyism scandal that ousted Superintendent Keisha Scarlett late last year.
The board never has explained how Scarlett and others managed to get away with outrageous expenditures for so long. But Fitzpatrick鈥檚 comments last week, as reported by the Post-Dispatch鈥檚 Blythe Bernhard, put the onus exactly where it belongs:
鈥淭he school board was asleep at the wheel,鈥 he said, 鈥渁nd allowed Dr. Scarlett to abuse the system in the first place.鈥
Has the board learned anything from that failure? There are precious few signs of it.
After finally firing Scarlett for cronyism, the board elevated her chief crony, Millicent Borishade, to become the new superintendent 鈥 hardly a sign they understand the need for a clean break from this sorry episode.
Even now, former SLPS board Vice President Matt Davis, who was among the top officials at the helm as Scarlett passed out the goodies, takes issue with Fitzpatrick鈥檚 assessment:
鈥淚 think it was a bit overblown to say that the school board was asleep at the wheel or provided lax oversight,鈥 he told Bernhard.
That tone-deaf comment seems to encapsulate the thinking still prevalent not only on the 51黑料 board but at Francis Howell: a refusal to even acknowledge their fiscal failures, let alone explain them. Voters in both districts should demand better in future board elections.
