More Violations of State Law by Decatur School Board and Adminstration

I have reviewed all minutes of the MSD Decatur Township School Board that are posted on the District website. These include all of the minutes from regularly scheduled Board meetings for the years 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009. No minutes for special sessions or work sessions are posted, although they are shown approved in the minutes of the regular meetings.

It is very disturbing that at no time from January, 2006, through December, 2009, is there any mention of any contract nor is there any record of any contract being submitted to the Board for a vote.

State law (IC 20-26-4-8) (addition of bold font is my addition)

Approval of contracts Sec. 8. Notwithstanding any other law, the president and secretary of the governing body of a school corporation are entitled, on behalf of the school corporation, to sign any contract, including employment contracts and contracts for goods and services. However, each contract must be approved by a majority of all members of the governing body. In the absence of either the president or secretary of the governing body, the vice president is entitled to sign the contracts with the officer who is present.

Indeed, at no point in these years of minutes, was there either mention of the public opening of competitive bids by the Board, or a designation of a committee to take on that responsibility on behalf of the Board.

State law (IC 20-26-4-6) (addition of bold font is my addition)

IC 20-26-4-6Bids for purchase of supplies or equipment Sec. 6.
(a) The governing body of any school corporation may designate a committee of at least two (2) of the governing body's members, or a committee of not less than two (2) employees of the school corporation, to open and tabulate bids:
(1) in connection with the purchase of supplies, material, or equipment;
(2) for the construction or alteration of a building or facility; or
(3) for any similar purpose.
(b) Bids described in subsection (a):
(1) may be opened by the committee at the time and place fixed by the advertisement for bids;
(2) must be read aloud and tabulated publicly, to the extent required by law for governing bodies;
and
(3) must be available for inspection.
(c) The bids described in subsection (a) must be reported to and the tabulation entered upon the records of the governing body at the governing body's next meeting following the bid opening.
(d) A bid described in subsection (a) may not be accepted or rejected by the committee, but the bid must be accepted or rejected solely by the governing body in a board meeting open to the public as provided in section 3 of this chapter.

The Board is either being deliberately kept in the dark by its Administration or it is willfully avoiding disclosure of fiscal matters to the public in its meetings. Either way, these violations of State law should cease at once so that the public can have the access to this information - a protection created by the laws.

An additional State law was violated just last Thursday evening. On January 28, 2010, the MSD Decatur Township School Board held an executive session followed by a special meeting which was followed by a work session. I am still looking into how legally adequate the notice of these three meetings was. But, one thing is clear - the location of these meetings in the Southwest Pavilion Office Building instead of the School Board room is a violation of State law.

State law states (IC 20-26-4-3) (addition of bold font is my addition)

(c) Special meetings of a governing body must be held on call by the governing body's president or by the superintendent of the school corporation. The call must be evidenced by a written notice specifying the date, time, and place of the meeting, delivered to each member personally or sent by mail or telegram so that each member has at least seventy-two (72) hours notice of the special meeting. Special meetings must be held at the regular meeting place of the board.

The regular meeting place is the Board Room in the Central Office. That meeting was held in violation of at least this State law.

The attitude of this School Board and this School District Administration is to do whatever they please. Regardless even of State laws that are easily located.

Nepotism Should Be Banned

The next School Board to be seated in MSD Decatur Township should immediately establish a policy that bans nepotism. Hiring relatives gives the appearance of favoritism, cronyism, and outright payback, to the community and to the employees of the school district. Banning nepotism is a small price to pay for a demonstration to the overall community that all employment decisions in the district will be above reproach - only the best qualified will be hired.

We all know about the current state of affairs in the Decatur School District. Lets start with the School Board. Dale Henson, to my knowledge, has never had a relative who was hired while Henson has been on the Board. That is good. Doug Greenwald, to my knowledge, has never had a relative who was hired while he has been a Member of the Board. That also is good. Cathy Wiseman has had at least one son on the payroll since being elected. Judy Collins has a daughter on the payroll. And, most famous of all, Don Huffman has a grandson on the payroll - which actually necessitated the ouster of an employee from his position to accomplish. Hiring relatives gives the appearance of favoritism, cronyism, and outright payback.

Now lets turn our attention to the Administration. Candice Baer was hired into a position created just after she lost her job as Superintendent of Center Grove Schools. Candice is married to Assistant Superintendent for Business, Jeff Baer. Hiring relatives gives the appearance of favoritism, cronyism, and outright payback.

Now, I will presume that all of these folks are highly qualified individuals who could have gotten a job in any School District in the land. Well, then let them. Employing relatives of highly placed individuals brings baggage with it. Unnecessary baggage. Nepotism is banned by law in other units of Government and should be banned in School Districts as well. Until State law bans nepotism in School Districts, the School Board should create a policy banning it in our District.

Here is what I would propose for a policy.

Any individual may run for and be seated on the School Board if their relative was already an employee of the District at the time of that person filing to be on the ballot.

After filing to be on the ballot or after being seated on the Board, no relative of a School Board member may be hired by the District until one year after that Member leaves the Board.

No relative of any Administrator (central office or building level) may be hired by the District while that Administrator is employed by the District and for one year after that Administrator leaves the employ of the District.

No relative of the leadership of the Teachers Union may be hired by the District while they are in positions of leadership and for one year after they leave those positions. Nobody in a leadership position of the Teachers Union may be hired into an Administrator position within the District for two years after they leave that leadership position.

No relative of a head of Security, Transportation, or any other department headed by a non-administrator, may be hired by the District while that department head is employed by the District and for one year after they leave that position.

Qualified people can find a job in a nearby District. Public trust in the system is eroded when nepotism is allowed to flourish as it has in the Decatur School District. A 'no nepotism' policy created by the new School Board would improve this District and its reputation.

Decatur School Board Votes at Worksession

A message has been sent out from Gary Pellico on behalf of the MSD Decatur Township School District. It seems the School Board actually voted on some budget restructuring items at last night's work session.

Here is the text of the message:

MSD School Board Moves on Administrative Fiscal Restructuring Plan

The MSD Decatur Township School Board began the process of fiscal restructuring at a special session last night approving a plan for the administrative cuts. Although the Superintendent had recommended a 20% reduction in his salary to lead the way, the board amended the recommendation to a 15% reduction. They then proceeded to accept the 5% reduction in administrative staff salary and capping insurance benefits. The board also voted to reduce five administrative positions effective for the 2010-2011 school year. These positions included 4 building level administrators and one central office administrator which results in two central office positions including the retirement of Dr. Jeff Baer.

In other action, the board voted to continue conversation about ways to make the Pavilion profitable and remain open to the public. They will look at plans and ideas presented during the community input session earlier in the week. The board also listened to an update on plans to have a district-wide celebration of unity and support in the spring. This event is being planned by the parent organizations and student council groups from schools throughout the district.

The board will meet in Executive Session on Thursday, February 4 to consider additional steps necessary for fiscal restructuring. This meeting will be held in the board room of the administrative offices at 6:00 p.m. Executive sessions are not open to the public. The next regular school board meeting will be held on Thursday, February 11 at 7:00 p.m.

My first reactions: Stinson supposedly wanted a 20% cut, but the Board said "NO - 15% is enough"???? What is wrong with that picture - let me count the ways. Exactly how does cutting Jeff Baer's position while simultaneously replacing Jeff Baer result in a loss of an Administration position??? Candice Baer already was leaving the district, so losing that position, created specifically for her to begin with, is no hard hit on the Administration. Yup, taking care of the Administrators first. These reductions are minor.

How to File to Run for School Board

Getting your name on the ballot to run for School Board seems like a daunting task at first. But, if you go step by step, you will find it is rather easy. In short -- you download the form, fill out your part of it, collect at least 10 signatures of support, get the form notarized and file it with the Election Board before the filing deadline - which in Marion County is noon, Friday, February 19, 2010.

In Marion County, the election for School Board will be held May 4, 2010. Each School District has is own School Board districts. Click here to view a map of all School Board districts in the County. I have posted a cut-out of the MSD Decatur Township School Board districts below.


Which District has open seats?

Decatur Township has three School Board districts; simply called district 1, district 2, district 3. Candidates can only run for an open Board seat in the district in which they live. And, they must have lived in the district for at least one year before Election Day. There can be no more than two Board members from any one district serving at the same time. Currently 3 seats are up for election on May 4; Cathy Wiseman's seat in district 1, Dale Henson's seat in district 3, and Judy Collins' seat in district 3. There are NO seats open in district 2 at this time. At the May 4th election, Decatur can vote for two candidates from district 1 and one from district two - or visa versa.



District 1 is the smaller area district in the northeast corner of the Township. District 2 is the one that runs south of I-456 and along the White River. District 3 is the one that takes in Troy Avenue to the north and the Hendricks County line to the west.


Who is qualified to run for School Board?

The following information is taken from the Candidates Guide posted on the Secretary of State's website. Go to page 73 for information on School Board races. You must be 21 years of age or older. You must reside in the School Board district in which you are running and must have lived there since at least May 4, 2009. You must be a registered voter in the district you wish to represent by noon, February 19, 2010; that means there is still time to register to vote so you can run for School Board. You must not have been previously convicted of a felony. You CANNOT run for a seat on the same School Board that governs the School District for which you work (you can be a teacher or custodian in Perry Township Schools and run for the Decatur Board, for example; but you cannot work for the Metropolitan School District of Decatur Township and run for the Decatur School Board).

Form to file to run for School Board

The Nomination and Consent for School Board Office form is available online on the Marion County Clerk's website under the Election Board pages. Read the instructions on the form carefully. If you have any questions at all, the folks who work in the Election Board office are extremely helpful. 327-5100

Basically, you fill out your name and address type of information and you get the signatures of ten people who live in the same School Board district as you AND who are registered to vote in that district. So, someone who just moved into the district, but who has not yet switched their voter registration to their new address, would not be qualified to sign your petition. You can collect more than ten signatures (use two copies of page 1 of the form and staple those to one copy of page 2) just to be sure you get the required number of qualified signatures. Each signer must provide their name, address, and date of birth so that the Election Board can verify that they meet the requirements to sign for your candidacy.

The form must be notarized after you have all of your signatures.

The completed forms must be turned in to the Election Board no later than noon, Friday, February 19, 2010. The office is located in the City-County Building on the first floor. If you come in the Market street entrance, walk down the hallway on your right after going through security. The Clerk's Office will be on your right about half way down the hall. The Election Board office is in the far right hand corner of the Clerk's Office. Remember to leave time to get through security - noon is the absolute deadline and NO candidate can file after that time.

Campaign Finance Reporting

If you do NOT receive more than $500 in campaign contributions OR do NOT spent more than $500 for your campaign, then you do NOT have to file a Campaign Finance Report. So, keep track of all contributions and all spending so that you know if and when you cross over that $500 limit. If you do cross over the limit, you can obtain the required forms and deadlines on the Election Board web pages - click here. It is rare that a School Board candidate hits that $500 limit.

So that's it. We have three open seats up for election. The filing deadline is noon, February 19, 2010. Think about running.

Top Decatur School District Salaries for 2008-2009 School Year

Today I obtained a public record from the Indiana State Board of Accounts that lists the name and salary of every employee of the Metropolitan School District of Decatur Township. I asked for the latest record and received one filed on January 15, 2009. Every year, every governmental unit in Indiana must report the amount of salary payable to each employee for the month of January. Below I have the name of every administrator and the amount of salary reported for the month of January, 2009. I also calculated the yearly salary from that. Since the School District pays twice a month, it was a simple matter of multiplying the month's wages by 12. Also included is the same information for Directors or Supervisors as well as other top earners in the District. In the table below I sorted these employees by building.

Name	Position	Building	Reported Jan, 2009 Salary	Calculated Yearly Salary
Donald Stinson	Administrator	Central Office	18,375.36	220,504.32
Dave Rather	Administrator	Central Office	11,585.56	139,026.72
Jeff Baer	Administrator	Central Office	11,335.59	136,027.08
Debra Sullivan	Administrator	Central Office	11,335.56	136,026.72
Patricia Jones	Administrator	Central Office	11048.38	132,580.56
Gary Pellico	Administrator	Central Office	10,727.96	128,735.52
Candice Milhon-Baer	Administrator	Central Office	10,602.96	127,235.52
Lillian Youngblood	Administrator	Central Office	9,480.48	113,765.76
Wesley Sanders	Administrator	Central Office	9,470.92	113,651.04
Susan Adams	Administrator	Central Office	9,374.30	112,491.60
Anna Cook	Administrator	Central Office	8,703.70	104,444.40
Kathleen Rogers	Director Childhood Nutrition	Central Office	7,739.22	92,870.64
Lisa Cook	Administrator	Central Office	7,404.42	88,853.04
Joseph Preda	Principal	DCHS	11,252.22	135,026.64
Kelly McWilliams	Asst. Principal	DCHS	9,391.68	112,700.16
Christina Duzenbery	Asst. Principal	DCHS	9070.02	108,840.24
Thomas Wachnicki, Jr.	Asst. Principal	DCHS	9,070.02	108,840.24
Catherine Tooley	Asst. Principal	DCHS	8,894.82	106,737.84
Doug Opel	Athletic Director	DCHS	8,865.50	106,386.00
Thomas Whitfield	Asst. Principal	DCHS	8,865.50	106,386.00
Sharon Downing	Asst. Principal	DCHS	8,807.22	105,686.64
Jill Meerman	Athletic Director	DCHS	7,601.54	91,218.48
Mark Anderson	Principal	DMS	10,969.24	131,630.88
Sandra Feely	Asst. Principal	DMS	8407.46	100,889.52
Nathan Davis	Asst. Principal	DMS	8336.40	100,036.80
Ronald Brothers	Athletic Director	DMS	7,798.02	93,576.24
Jeffrey Harvey	Principal	DILC	9,582.10	114,985.20
Matthew Prusiecki	Principal	DILC	9,582.10	114,985.20
Scott Opsahl	Principal	Lynwood	9,582.10	114,985.20
Robert Kehrein	Principal	Stephen Decatur	9,489.62	113,875.44
Nanette Wiseman	Principal	Valley Mills	9,420.40	113,044.80
Janet Larch	Principal	West Newton	10,005.70	120,068.40
Susan Bryant	Principal	ECC	9,582.10	114,985.20
John Pietrzak	Administrator	DEC	9,582.10	114,985.20
Rose O'Brien	Supervisor of Transportation	Operations	6,590.70	79,088.40
Aaron Hillard	Maintenence Foreman	Operations	5,758.32	69,099.84
David Kinsey	Security Supervisor	Security	3,919.02	47,028.24
Wayne Fisher	Recreation Manager	Armstrong Pavilion	4,402.38	52,828.56

Okay Folks -- Your Turn

Those of you who attended one of the MSD Decatur Township School Board public hearings -- staff or community -- what was your take on what happened?

Did you testify? If so, what points did you try to make? What points did other speakers make that resonated with you? What do you wish you, or somebody else, had said? How did the School Board and Adminstration react to the comments?

Your turn.

Security is First Casualty of Budget Cuts

Before Columbine, school security was entirely different. Threats of this source and magnitude weren't really imaginable. And the standard operating procedure for how security forces responded was entirely different. Not only did Columbine shatter our image of what threats are possible, it changed entirely, the recommended methods of response.

Let me cut to the chase of this blog entry. Summing it all up, the Metropolitan School District of Decatur Township has not implemented recommended key facets of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) first responder standards, have laid off trained MSD Security Officers, and propose cutting the MSD Security Department down to one, maybe none. This irresponsible attitude toward the safety of Decatur's children while they are in school MUST be reversed.

In the High School, Superintendent Don Stinson has contracted with a private guard company whose personnel act as glorified hall monitors. They carry no weapons and they receive no DHS first responder training. Decatur Central High School is now the only High School in Marion County that does not have an armed and sworn Officer on premises for the protection of the students. I have mentioned much of this before in Decatur Central High School - Budget Cuts Target School Safety.

In his "Fiscal Restructuring Plan", Stinson proposes cutting the MSD Security budget by another $54,000 and possibly winnowing it down to one, or even zero, Officers. This is an outrage. The School District must protect the children from harm while they are in school. And they must be prepared to protect them from the worst scenarios. I doubt that the entire MSD Security budget, even before the cuts began last year, amounts to half of what Stinson pulls down every year. That entire amount needs to be restored so that we have trained professionals on our school campuses.

Let me give you a glimpse of how badly prepared our School District is to respond to a Columbine-like incident.

The response to the takeover of Columbine High School was the standard operating procedure at the time. Isolate. Contain. Negotiate. Analysis of the entire incident and an evaluation of the effectiveness of the response led to a complete nationwide overhaul of the recommended methods employed by first responders. After Columbine the recommendations for first responders became to react immediately. Get into the building as soon as possible once you are aware that there is an serious incident of violence playing out. Turn the attention of the 'active shooter' away from innocent lives and toward the armed responders. Incidents that followed Columbine - in Pearl, MS, and Jonesboro, AK - show that the sooner armed first responders can gain entry to the building, the sooner the attack on innocent lives stops.

So, training in first responder methods and standards recommended by the DHS is a MUST for our Security Officers in Decatur Schools. The contracted services of unarmed, untrained, glorified hall monitors does not meet that requirement.

How should the trained security officers respond? Well, simply put, the first thing is AS FAST AS POSSIBLE. To do that we need to have the full contingent of officers on the School District payroll and on campus. While IMPD will always be called and will always come running - being on the spot as soon as possible and being on the spot with folks who know the campus and are familiar with the buildings as soon as possible - is a MUST. Laying off our School Security Officers and reducing the department to only one person would be laughable, if this weren't such serious business.

Once on site, DHS recommends gaining entry from three different doors, simultaneously. That means you MUST have at least 3 first responders. At this point we have only two. If Stinson has his way, we will have only one. He calls it the 'Wayne Township model' - one full time officer and the remainder of the staff made up of moonlighting, off duty, IMPD officers. Only, that's not what the Wayne Township School District is doing. They have 4 full time Security Officers. We simply MUST return the Decatur Security Department to full staffing. That might cost another $50,000 - 75,000 a year. But, the priority MUST be on the safety of the students. PERIOD.

To gain entry from three different doors, simultaneously, you need at least 3 trained Security Officers with 3 master keys. Susan Adams, the highly paid Administrator whose role is to be the head custodian, has refused to provide the Security Department with a sufficient number of master keys to facilitate immediate entry as recommended by the DHS model. She refuses to provide all District Security Officers with keys in direct contradiction of DHS first responder methods. We MUST provide all of our Security Officers with master keys. Come on. It's NOT THAT HARD !

What is supposed to happen once the first contingent of IMPD Officers arrive on the scene? They, too, are trained in DHS first responder methods and standards -- but, they are not familiar with the layout of our schools. DHS recommends that all School Security Officers carry a 'SWAT box' in their police vehicles at all times. In this SWAT box are to be the floor plans for each and every school in the district. They can share these floor plans with the IMPD Officers. It is not difficult to see how very important this recommendation is. Also in the SWAT box are to be the master keys needed to gain entry to every school in the district. Not only does Susan Adams refuse to provide the master keys, she even refuses to provide the required floor plans. Oh, for the love of Pete ! What on earth is going on in this School District ? What part of "Department of Homeland Security first responder standards" is so hard to understand as important ? Why is Stinson allowing Susan Adams to refuse to hand over keys and floor plans to our first responders? Why is Stinson hell bent on gutting our District Security Department?

This petty, short sighted, crazy attitude toward the safety of Decatur's children MUST STOP. The cuts already implemented MUST be rolled back and no further cuts made. Keys MUST be provided to the District Security Officers. Floor plans MUST be provided to the District Security Officers. Stinson and his highly paid cronies like to say that the children are the priority. But, you sure cannot tell that by their actions.