Hold school board members accountable

Dear Editor:

I am greatly concerned with what is taking place within the Delta County School District. Since the school board election last fall, our new school board has, in my opinion, demonstrated fiscal irresponsibility and very poor decision-making.

In the brief time that the current school board has been in operation, the Board has forced Mr. McMillan from the position of superintendent, however, agreeing to pay his salary for another year. The board has hired an interim superintendent, Mr. Doss, and has paid him a significant superintendent's salary. The board has enlisted the services of the Colorado Association of School Boards (CASB) at considerable expense, to conduct a superintendent search, and in the end, the board rejected all applicants except for one, and ultimately that applicant withdrew from consideration. And now, our school board has decided to hire Mr. Doss for an additional year, as superintendent, at a cost greater than the school district had been paying our former superintendent.

Our current school board has announced the elimination of several district office positions, under the guise of balancing the district's budget. But then, in the next breath, the board announced that all staff would be receiving a one time, 1 percent bonus. The cost to the district of providing this 1 percent bonus is mysteriously similar to the amount of the district office position cuts, and so one wonders, how the board is saving any additional money to balance the budget.

Lastly, during a budget work session in recent days, Tom Mingen commented that the board wanted to streamline and reduce costs at the district office. In last week's DCI, Tom Mingen was quoted as saying, "The bottom line is, do you put the dollars in the district office or do you put them in the classroom?" Once again, one wonders why then did Mr. Doss and the school board recently spend district funds to place all new carpeting in the district office?

This type of decision-making demonstrates that our current school board members, with Tom Mingen as the board president, are very poor stewards of our public education funds.

I urge all citizens of the Delta County School District to get involved in asking questions of our current school board members. We must hold them accountable for their decision-making and their actions. Remind Tom Mingen, Pete Blair, Kathy Svensen, Cheryl Hines and Tammy Smith that they were elected to serve on our school board to represent us and the needs of the district's children, not for their own needs for power and control.

Nora O'Brien

Paonia

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