“This examination found that unfortunately, it’s not all
about the kids.
Mismanagement of the finances of
the state’s 2nd largest school district,
with an annual budget of more
than $400 million, is obviously very troubling.
But even more so is a
culture within certain elements of management
that does not reflect the
district’s purported values. Our kids deserve better.”
---Auditor Adam Edelen
In the wake of a scathing review of district financial practices from State Auditor Adam Edelen, at least two FCPS board members are expressing doubts about Shelton's ability to continue as superintendent. Board Chair John Price has publicly supported Shelton, while members Melissa Bacon and Daryl Love are generally considered to be reliable. Both Amanda Ferguson and Doug Barnett have expressed doubts about Shelton's future.
Below is the auditor's press release, followed by links to the Audit report, and Superintendent Tom Shelton's response to the audit.
Adam Edelen's press release.
State Audit of FCPS
FCPS Response to Audit
Shelton's remarks at this afternoon's press conference
5 comments:
How can Shelton say,"no criminal activities have happened"? When you intentionally hide a fund left by a teacher to use for education and NO ONE knew about it, except Jackson and a few others at CO, this is criminal to our taxpayers, teachers, and students! You give yourself a big fat raise and forget about the ones who actually do the work. This is all a bunch of bullshit that is being caused by the ones who are suppose to have the education to run a school district. The only thing they know how to do, is give big raises to a certain few in CO! It's Not About Kids! IT'S ABOUT HOW MUCH CAN THESE PATHETIC PEOPLE MAKE OR SHOULD I SAY SCREW THE PEOPLE OF FAYETTE COUNTY and OUR SCHOOLS OUT OF!It"s time for a few resignations, starting at the top and working down 10 plus spots!
I heard (second-hand) that Shelton stated during his news conference that this audit was simply a distraction (I will check to confirm this first-hand).
Unfortunately, the only distraction is the distraction from any effective improvement in education within the Fayette County school system circumvented by Shelton's totally ineffective leadership, continual mismanagement, and continual generation of one conflict of interest after another.
If he has any actual interest in seeing Fayette County move forward, his first step in securing this objective will be his resignation as superintendent of FCPS (along with the Board of Education members who continually support his inept attempts with failure to carry out his responsibilities).
Although the activities within Central Office may not have been found to be criminal within a legal framework, it is my opinion that the constant distraction from any actual focus on educational improvement (but instead on gaming the system for personal benefit) that is the apparent hallmark of his tenure as superintendent is another story all together.
Okay, so let's see who on the BOE ranks highest in the stupidity category.
"As board members, we are suppose to be overseers, not micro-managers, so there is a balance there," Bacon said.
Apparently Melissa Bacon is confused as to the meaning of the word "oversight". She apparently has this word confused with the word "overlook". I have seen little if any evidence of anything that resembles oversight by the BOE. Instead the BOE supporters of Shelton consistently overlook his complete ineptness as an educational leader, his continual mismanagement and conflict of interest schemes, and his failure to place any focus on real improvement in education in any of the Fayette County public schools. Melissa Bacon, John Price, and Daryl Love are all responsible for allowing FCPS to continue year after year to remain educationally destitute.
Daryl Love said in a statement that he was pleased to hear that no money was missing and there hasn't been any criminal activity.
If Love found anything to be "pleased" about within this audit report, he has no business having any involvement in any decisions even remotely related to education within Fayette County.
This is a continuation of my previous posting:
At a news conference Wednesday, Shelton outlined several key steps he planned to take to address the problems identified in the audit, including "hiring two outside consultants" and restructuring the finance and budget divisions. - So here we go again - let's waste more taxpayers money hiring outside consultants to fix a set of problems that we (the administration) purposely created in the first place. If every problem that needs to be fixed within the FCPS system requires an outside consultant, then it points even further to the apparent fact that Shelton has no capability to fix anything on his own. It definitely appears that we taxpayers are footing the bill for Shelton's salary so that he can continually have someone else do his job for him at an even greater expense to the taxpayers.
School board Chairman John Price said Wednesday that he supported Shelton and that the school system is already making changes to address problems mentioned in the audit. What Price is saying actually translates as: We will figure out some way to sweep all of this under the rug until such time that it is simply forgotten. - All of the problems addressed in the audit have been quite obvious even to the casual onlooker over an extended period of time. If there were any actual oversight by the BOE and its czar John Price, the problems addressed in the audit would have been recognized immediately upon their occurrence (long before any audit was ever carried out) and would have been immediately fixed. To fail to even recognize the most obvious problems that have existed and continually increased since Shelton's initial hiring shows an atmosphere of "see no mismanagement, hear no mismanagement, speak no mismanagement" by three members of the BOE.
This is a second follow-up to my previous posting:
Apparently neither Melissa Bacon, Daryl Love, nor John Price have the mental wherewithall to understand that overlooking is not overseeing and that continual ass-kissing of the superintendent is definitely not oversight by anyone's definition.
I guess it pretty much looks like a dead-heat as far as the stupidity rankings go.
As a taxpayer I am simply fed up with the way FCPS fails to take any responsibility in its mission to improve education and fed up with a BOE where three of its members might as well be biological clones of Tom Shelton.
Rumor has it that Shelton has hand-picked someone to run against Doug Barnett in the next BOE election. Doug, along with Amanda Ferguson, are the only two BOE members who try to provide any
oversight at all - which is constantly thwarted by Bacon, who is opposed to even a resemblance of oversight by the Board. Clearly, if this is the case (which would simply represent just another 'Shelton scheme for personal benefit' at the expense of education within FCPS). It therefore appears obvious that Shelton and the majority of the BOE wants even less oversight than there is currently. So much for Melissa Bacon's bullcarp about the Board job is to provide oversight. The current Board's job appears to be to do nothing except allow education in Fayette County to accelerate it progress down the toilet.
All of you teachers must rise up and demand Shelton's resignation as superintendent along with the three Board members John Price, Melissa Bacon, and Daryl Love. Perhaps a threat to strike (to which, up to now, I have always been opposed) might be in order as a last resort. In addition, all taxpayers in Fayette County
must demand these same resignations before there is another raise in school taxes to provide additional money to be wasted through Central Office mismanagement and administrative ineptness.
Apparently in the mind of our current superintendent, Central Office is a kingdom - an empire with Shelton as its emperor. Teachers - you are viewed with the status of peasants under feudalism. Each teacher is viewed by CO as a serf - little more than a person in a condition of servitude, required to render services to a lord, commonly attached to the lord's land and transferred with it from one owner to another.
Oh, and by the way - It's All About Kids. This is the biggest bullshit slogan that FCPS ever came up with. The appropriate slogan would be "It's About Personal Benefit, Power, and Everything Else Except the Kids".
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