School Board botches first response to budget bombshell

When you have a multi-million dollar deficit in your school district and all kinds of questions about how things were run, and you have been hiring expensive people to entrust with the district’s operation, two of whom you just pushed out, one would think that the next moves you make would be cautious, careful and absolutely transparent.

And one would think that, after the overwhelmingly embarrassing experience you just went through — which isn’t over yet, by the way — that you would:

• Not put all of your trust into the recommendation of a contract employee — in this case the board attorney — who might be an expert, but who does not live in or answer to your district’s voters and parents.

• Scrutinize the experience and the connections of a firm that you are planning to pay about $40,000 to fix the mess in your district — and be open and honest about the fact that you are making such an expenditure. (Read: Discuss the plan to hire someone, not the details of the contract, openly in a meeting in front of the public that you say you want to be upfront with.)

• Be overly zealous about being absolutely transparent — and a stickler for the rules for open meetings and what you can and cannot discuss (and decide) in executive session. And that you would make sure that since your community is already wondering how you and the people you hired allowed this all to happen, that you would understand the need to be absolutely crystal clear about all of your dealings when making any more hires or expensive purchases.

• Since you have just told the teachers in your school district that you are not sure if you are going to be able to pay their stipends unless someone bails you out, that you might negotiate a better deal than paying the consultant you brought in as interim superintendent to clean up the mess $7,000 more a month than the (overpaid) man you already had in the job. And that you might do a little more research before hiring a $40,000 firm to “investigate” how it all happened.

(SIDE NOTE: We have read claims that when you bring Dunsmore’s benefits into the equation, his compensation was actually $21,000 a month, so publishing his nearly $16,000 a month pay alongside Merrill’s salary is “misleading.” Here’s the reality: Merrill is being paid more than $22,000 a month — not including his $275/week housing allowance — BUT his benefits are being paid by the state because he is a retired state employee. So, comparing his salary to what Dunsmore cost the district when you add in benefits is disingenuous. If the county isn’t paying benefits, the salary cost per month should be lower, not higher.)

There are lots of questions about how the Wayne County Board of Education got itself into this mess and who knew what, who approved what, and who did not pay attention to what that led to a $5 million deficit and all kinds of concerns about hiring, budgets and spending.

And the board’s latest actions, which we assume were about doing something quickly, do not make us feel any better that its members “get” why their community is in such turmoil about the whole situation.

Let’s look at the events of this past couple weeks.

• The board, after the district denied there was a problem several days earlier, either seeks or receives the resignation of its superintendent. (The circumstances around that are unclear — no one is sure when all of this occurred, but we know that negotiations were under way with Dr. Michael Dunsmore this past week).

• The board recesses its June 2 special-called meeting after a multi-hour executive session and a presentation of an audit, adding personnel items to the agenda.

• At its June 3 meeting, the board goes back into executive session after a two-hour delay as members “wait for the board attorney.”

• The board reconvenes, and with no public discussion, announces that it has negotiated and accepted Dunsmore’s resignation; votes to hire an interim superintendent — with no public discussion of the terms or consideration of candidates for the job and no indication of how the candidate came to the board’s attention or the expectations for the job; votes to hire a firm to investigate the operations of the school district — also without taking bids or listening to proposals, reviewing resumes or discussing publicly the possibility of making such a hire.

So here’s what’s concerning about all that.

Dr. James Merrill has a great resume. He ran one of the biggest school districts in the state — so well that he was named a N.C. Superintendent of the Year.

But he is expensive, very expensive.

And the majority of his experience, while valuable, is not with a district Wayne County’s size. So, it is a legitimate question to ask a lot more about how he came to the board’s attention — specifically who brought him to the board’s attention — how he was vetted and if other candidates were considered.

There are rules about how you handle large purchases, agenda changes in special-called meetings and hiring potential candidates to handle operations for a reason.

Back-door discussions and “bending of the rules” and “connections” influencing hiring decisions, well that is how you get a school district in bad fiscal shape and a community with serious doubts about the judgment of those running it.

It is too late now. The contracts have been signed. (Although a legal challenge to the consulting contract could, quite possibly, nullify it.) But there are questions that need to be answered.

So, while we welcome our county’s new interim superintendent and are waiting to see what School Operations Specialists LLC has on the agenda, we feel it necessary to remind everyone involved that transparency is a critical part of this process.

It is not spending the money for quality schools that bothers taxpayers. It is about spending money wisely and not like drunken sailors on shore leave.

There is so much mire, so much money and influence peddling in the process and so much bureaucracy gumming up the works that many people wonder how far down on the priority list students and teachers really are.

And the people who pay for that waste and “we did not know what is going on” excuses are the kids, the community and the teachers and staff who accept lower salaries and fewer resources while thousands of dollars disappear into the wind.

We feel that there is a lot to look at carefully in the Wayne County Public Schools.

And trust us, we are going to look at every expenditure, every contract and connect the dots in every hiring decision.

And we know public records and open meetings laws — and are prepared to make sure the letter of the law is followed.

That is how you get a public body back on track and truly answering to the people.

The board has pledged complete openness in the wake of its latest budget debacle. And we have seen some efforts in that regard with prompt release of documents and quick response to questions from the district’s public relations/information officer.

Some board members have also promised to be open to questions.

We will see if they really mean it.

We should remind you not to confuse putting a school board meeting on Facebook Live where you can’t tell who is speaking half the time and issuing public statements and press releases with true transparency.

And we should note that turning a blind eye to a problem for years — or simply accepting and publishing press releases as fact — allows the entity to dictate the narrative, to spin the information however it sees fit.

No one asks questions. No one knows what they are seeing. No one knows the context. And we bet, given how far in the hole WCPS is at this point — and the incredible revelation that this downward financial spiral has been in motion for YEARS — that very few people watch the whole enchilada and those charged with checking the powerful have been asleep at the wheel.

So, keep asking questions. Keep sending us tips. Send messages to our Facebook and Instagram accounts @newoldnorth

You are as much a part of holding those in power accountable as anyone.

We are interested in making this community better — not simply publishing sensational headlines or getting clicks to turn a profit.

We believe in what Wayne County could be and already is. And that’s why we won’t stop.

Not at Royall Avenue. Not at the courthouse. Not inside City Hall.

Let’s get our city, county, schools and community where it should be again.

After all, these people work for all of us.

It’s high time they started acting like it — or we will remind them at the ballot box.