Decaturites - The Bus Drivers Need Your Help

Tonight, the MSD Decatur Township school board will vote on a new transportation plan that has the aim of pushing out our longest serving and most experienced bus drivers.

The agenda  (abysmal in its lack of detail, as always) notes the item as "4.05 Approval of Transportation Restructuring Plan -- Mr. Stinson".  Don't know what the transportation restructuring plan is?  That's what they want - nobody in the public has access to the exact plan without filing an open records request and hope to get it by tonight. 

This administration is putting out different information to different people - some of it simple falsehoods to keep the fires low. 

The bus drivers have been told that on May 27 they will be "technically unemployed".  They have been required to fill out a job application, including submitting references.  They have been told that they will be evaluated on a points system that has secretly been in place all year.  They have been told that the secret points system includes giving a demerit for using sick leave.  When asked to provide the drivers with the criteria for the point system, they were told that they could not see it.  When asked for the criteria for re-hiring, they are told that nothing exists to show them. 

The press is being told that property tax caps and school funding cuts are the cause of the districts transportation budget woes.  Even though the district knew last year, that the budget for transportation would be $2 million, they are spending almost twice that on a transportation scheme that was tried and failed in Perry Township earlier.  Even though they bought more buses and hired more drivers, this administration supposedly thought they would save money, not spend more money.  This is exhibit A in how very incompetent the Stinson administration and this rubber stamping school board are.

Some people have been told that the bus drivers have only been asked to indicate their intent to return to work next year.  This is a lie.

This administration has a clear pattern of keeping as much of the community in the dark as possible.  The agenda is uninformative.  Unlike any number of other school districts whose agendas are posted online with the underlying documents easily accessible, our district continues to keep the agenda limited to pablum. 

If you go to a meeting, you cannot tell what is being discussed because there is never full disclosure of the information, even at the meeting.  It is as if you walked into a private conversation if you go to a board meeting - which is pretty much the reality.  Community input is only a hindrence to these people.

Stinson and the rubber stamping school board just bought 134 acres of land.  The district has so much debt, that property taxes will not cover the payments and they had to let teachers go just last year to make ends meet.  Yet, their greed knows no bounds and they bought land they actually have no idea how they will use.  They already own over 100 acres; some of which was purchased without following the law for appraisals and some land for which they paid half again as much as it was worth.  They already own the old Concentra Building on Kentucky Avenue and refuse to sell it.  Our debt payments could be much lower if they showed any fiscal responsibility.  Yet, they buy even more property. 

So, there is enough money to buy unneeded property, but not enough money to safely and efficiently transport Decatur's children to school. 

Meanwhile, the bus drivers are our neighbors.  They are among the handful of employees who actually live in Decatur.  Go figure -- your tax dollars are going to pay outrageous salaries to administrators who refuse to live with us.  But, most of the drivers are from our community.  They know your children.  They care for your children.  They will call you if your child is not where they were supposed to be or if you are not home when they go to drop your child off.

Stinson gets an obscene amount of money for a Superintendent of a small district.  He gives administrators unusually high salaries and benefits - plus has implemented an unfunded liability in promised future payments for retirement packages that will haunt our budget for the next generation. 

The bus drivers' sin is that they do not matter to Don Stinson.  Stinson told the drivers that all employees had to share in the pain.  When asked what he was giving up, he said, : "If you don't like it, quit."

This community ought to tell Stinson and the rubber stamping school board that they need to cut administrator salaries and positions (as they promised to do, but have not done), and if they don't like it, they can quit.