Last Wednesday the board approved a full time HR Director position. Jim Orlenko, our current HR Director, has resigned and will be leaving next month. Jim currently works half time, and the proposal made by Superintendent Gerlach is to replace Jim with a full time employee - this is expected to cost an additional $10K over current expenditures. I have heard concerns from several that it might be inappropriate to add an administrative position while we are facing budget cuts. I understand these concerns, but for me this was not a difficult decision:
It has become apparent that there are significant deficiencies in administration of payroll and benefits that have been going on for some time, and that the status quo really hasn't been successfully managing these functions. The district has routinely relied on overtime from central office staff to do significant portions of the related HR work. Straightening this out will result in a better run district which will entail savings, at the same time it will allow the administration to focus on other issues central to our mission.
The school district has employment contracts with six different bargaining units. Currently we rely on contracted legal services to assist us in negotiating these agreements, work that accounts for the major portion of our $140K legal services budget. In effect the district has been contracting out these essential services to our law firm because we didn’t have the internal expertise or resource to handle them. An HR Director with the right qualifications will be able to significantly reduce our legal costs, as Jim has done during his tenure.
The ultimate responsibility of an HR director is to ensure the quality of the workforce in the district. I believe its worth a small investment to help ensure we get full value from that larger one. I bet there are very few examples of organization in the private sector our size that don’t have entire HR departments. The business community has voted with their wallets that investing in dedicated Human Resources personnel is a smart bet. Done correctly I'm confident that we will find this a worthwhile investment.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
"The school district has employment contracts with six different bargaining units. Currently we rely on contracted legal services to assist us in negotiating these agreements, work that accounts for the major portion of our $140K legal services budget."
I would like to know how much these "contracts" cost the taxpayers each year, and what services they provide.
Also, would love to know how much our contract with Chartwells (A British Corporation) is running......
Is MGSD morphing into MG INC? Let's keep corporations out of our District please and hire people from our Community
Also, what does Mr. Gerlach make per year? Rumor has it, he got a pretty hefty salary increase, ($25k) while the Food Service Workers took no pay raise. Is this true?
Wouldn't it be nice to peek into the books of our School District? Total transparency so to speak?
I bet we'd find some real "hum-dingers" of purchases in the books........
Anyone interested in forming a "Parent Oversight Committee", an auditing committee to keep the "honest", honest?
As a parent and taxpayer, we often feel as if the numbers don't add up.....
The "contracts" are for teachers, custodians, clerical staff, food service staff and others. They cost us the vast majority of the budget because these cover the vast majority of the district employees.
The Chartwell's contract doesn't cost us anything, while our internal food service had been running a $50K/year deficit. Chartwells manages the food service and takes a 4% management fee out of the fees collected from the students. Surpluses are returned to the district.
You have an "oversight committee", its called the school board. All expenses are presented monthly to the board and are available to the public in the board packets - you won't find any "hum-dingers" in there, you will find a lot of things that should be done, but aren't because we can't afford it.
The district budget is even available on the DPI website. http://www.dpi.state.wi.us/sfs/index.html.
All the information you are asking for is public and transparent. I would urge you to look it over and add it up yourself and give us specific ideas for reducing expenditures.
Post a Comment