According to tonight’s news on WDIO The School Board has been advised by its attorneys to make no comment on the 30 days paid leave that Dr. Foster is earning for not getting around to acquiring a Minnesota Superintendent’s license. Jeepers! Its been six months.
As Claudia noted public education is replete with licenses and certificates. That anyone allowed Dr. Foster to continue work without any effort to keep him on a track for a Superintendent’s license is gross incompetence. Probably I.V.’s.
Oh, and the DNT already has this covered. Furthermore, the Board has approved a 4.9% tax increase. Because its built upon a levy that has been increased dramatically in recent years by Red Plan Spending that’s pretty hefty.
In the old days Tim Grover would have extorted a pledge from other Board members (as he did me in 1997) not to raise any levies that did not require voter approval before he would support a referendum for a levy increase. Today he voted for it and then began his retirement.
As more tribulations befall the Duluth School District we should remember one more name besides Dr. Keith Dixon for the troubles. Tim Grover. It would be simple justice if, like Judy, he had to stay for another four years and suffer the slings and arrows.
The DNT story explains the coming problem but only sort of:
The board also approved the annual transfer of about $4.5 million from the general fund to the debt service fund for financing of the long-range facilities plan. That money is meant to come from operational savings, rebates, grants and the sale of properties, except the district has not sold enough properties to make up that funding. The district’s fund reserve has taken the blow, leaving it at about half of what it was last year, at about $6.8 million. Once properties are sold, the fund will be replenished, district officials have said.
The trouble is in that last sentence. Selling the extra properties will only take care of about one years’s deficit spending. After the building sales (if they make us anywhere near what the District planned on) We will have another seventeen years where we have to steal $4.5 million from the classroom to pay the bankers we borrowed from to go into the RED.
