It's Your Money

As you have been reading in this column for several months, your Taxpayers’ Association has been extremely unhappy with the animosity and childishness displayed at recent Martin County School Board meetings. We have tried to be relatively impartial, wanting to solve the situation rather than create more problems by taking sides. We have, however, actively disagreed with the School Board (SB) on a number of issues that seemed aimed at unnecessarily restricting the power of the Superintendent. More recently both the Palm Beach Post and Stuart News have echoed our sentiments in their editorial comments, some with much more emphasis on perceived transgressions by SB members.

Your Taxpayers’ Association has a Schools Committee, made up of members of our Board of Directors, which regularly meet with the Martin County School Superintendent and members of her staff. We believe we understood the issues involved but, in an effort to make sure we had heard all relevant positions, we invited the SB Chairwoman to attend our August Board meeting. She was encouraged to make an opening statement and was then questioned for over an hour on a variety of issues by the Directors.

To her credit, she directly challenged many of our opinions and was honest and forthright in her answers. On most school policy and budget issues the SB appeared to hold reasonable positions and there was agreement between the Superintendent and the Chairwoman’s interpretation of SB decisions. However, just barely under the surface there is an admitted, ongoing effort to suppress open input from the Superintendent and limit her authority. Repeatedly cited was the fact that the School Board is the “ultimate decision maker”, and that there is an “agreement”, that includes the Superintendent, to limit her input at Board meetings. Supposedly, this agreement was made between “all parties” at a State level “Board Training” session although the Superintendent does not agree with this interpretation.

This supposedly self-inflicted agreement was repeatedly questioned and challenged by our Directors who were in disbelief that such a policy would be advocated, much less embraced and enthusiastically enforced. Most of our Board members have extensive management experience (resumes are at www.mctaxpayers.org/) that includes senior government and school officials, fortune 100 company executives and even teachers of the subject at university level. Our collective judgment was that this was, on its face, a disruptive, destructive policy that actively inhibits good management.

The Superintendent is an elected official that controls hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars and supervises over 2,500 employees. As the President/CEO of what amounts to a major corporation, not allowing her to advocate her policies and procedures at a meeting of her “Board of Directors” is beyond insane. Add to that the SB maintains a policy that the Superintendent is held silent even while members of the public ridicule and accuse her and District staff of various offensives - and the practice becomes unconscionable.

According to the Chairwoman these accusations are indicative of real problems being brought forward by aggrieved former employees that are being given their “1st amendment rights”. Also, SB members have vocally indicated they are having difficulty getting data on these and other issues from the Superintendent. Hello! What better way to get answers and other data from the Superintendent than by directly asking appropriate questions in an open televised meeting? Whatever the merits of the Board’s issues with the Superintendent, not allowing her to speak in such an open forum does NOTHING to help solve problems, explain positions, cure misconceptions OR FACILITATE GOOD MANAGEMENT OF THE DISTRICT.

This policy also severely limits the ability of the public to actively analyze the issues being debated since only the opinion of the Board and those approved to speak at their televised meetings are heard. (MCTV coverage is archived at www.martin.fl.us ) The School Board’s protestations indicate that the Superintendent is not being an effective asset manager and is making personnel decisions based on bias rather than merit. What is being demonstrated by their actions, whether the accusations are true or not, is that a majority of the SB are biased, ineffective managers/leaders.

The MCTA have long been active supporters of restoring the natural flow of the Everglades and, even more importantly, efforts to mitigate the effects of releasing lake Okeechobee water into the Saint Lucie Estuary. Rapidly approaching finalization is the State’s purchase of a large tract of land from US Sugar that will eventually be used to help restore this natural flow. As currently constructed this deal will cost the State hundreds of million of dollars and wipe out the funds for virtually all other Estuary mitigation projects.

Martin County has donated some $40 million to an ongoing storm water retention project that could quickly help the estuary, but will now go unfinished. We certainly hope that those advocating this purchase understand that, without significant additional land purchase and other infrastructure funds, this acquisition can do nothing to facilitate Everglades flow. The land is also slated to be leased back to US Sugar for many years at what is claimed by area sugar growers to be a lower than market rate. We again suggest that those making decisions on this purchase also find ways to support current efforts that will not take decades to demonstrate a positive effect.

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