Entitlements

My second round of public records requests have finally started arriving and here are some of the things I've been able to discover:

1) The district has paid $1,603 for the superintendent to play golf. On one occasion, the district paid for the superintendent's entry fees to a high school golf tournament while other staff members paid their own way.

2) The district has paid for the superintendent to attend the Panther Club Auction and paid for his meal while "volunteering" at golf clinic organized by a student as a senior project. For heaven's sake, even the people who organize the Panther Club Auction buy their own tickets. Like the golf tournaments, it's supposed to be a fund-raiser, not a fund transfer.

3) The district has paid over $1,500 for the superintendent to eat lunch with his own administrators at local restaurants. "Working lunches" for teachers usually involve a sandwich from home, a stack of papers to be graded, and a desk. Why are we paying for the superintendent's lunch? It's one thing to buy his lunch if he is at a meeting in Portland, it's quite another when it's just a regular work day. Lots of people talk about work while eating lunch with co-workers. I'll bet most of our district staff does. Would the superintendent be willing to pay for their meals on a regular basis or is that a perk he reserves for himself?

4) The district gives the superintendent $75 per month to pay for his personal cell phone. (At least that is what was agreed upon back in 2006 - I'll try to verify the current amount and update this post when I have the info)

5) Since 2007, the district has reimbursed the superintendent $1,705.04 for mileage outside of the district. Prior to 2007, the superintendent received $300 per month as a stipend to cover his travel within the district and he was required to submit mileage for reimbursement when he had to attend meetings outside of the district (see the page marked 1 above). Beginning in 2007, his in-district stipend was increased to $500 per month and he was given a $150 per month stipend to cover out-of-district travel (see page marked 2 above). This was at his request as he found it inconvenient to keep track of and submit his mileage. The stipend was to REPLACE the mileage reimbursement system - that was the whole point. Instead, he has been receiving both!

6) Between the stipends and the mileage reimbursements, the district has paid the superintendent more than $34,000 to drive his own car these past five years.

7) For 2005-06, the superintendent's budget for expenses was $3,500; he spent $7,241. For 2006-07, his budget was $4,000; he spent $6,416. For 2007-08 his budget was $4,000 and he spent $7,276. For those three years, he overspent his expense budget by 82%. If you look at the page marked 1 above you will see that his expenses were to be approved by the Board or within prescribed limits. 82% over budget is well outside prescribed limits! The Board was never informed of any of this and the only reason I have this information now is because of a public records request. I will post the information for the most recent two years as soon as I receive it.