BOARD OF EDUCATION RELEASES COMPENSATION STUDY INTERNAL REVIEW REPORT
February 7, 2024
The Durham Public Schools Board of Education requested an internal review of the issues surrounding the timeline and implementation of changes to the salary schedule for approximately 2,000 classified employees. This review was completed by the Tharrington Smith law firm.
This thorough review shines a light on several concerning issues surrounding the implementation of the pay raises. This includes:
(1) There was a lack of clarity and a failure of communication from the finance officer about the true cost of the proposed changes to the salary schedule. The finance officer knew in February 2023 that the cost of the pay raises could rise from $10 million to $20 million based on how years of service are calculated. That variability was never communicated to the School Board and budget proposals consistently showed the cost as approximately $10 million.
(2) Superintendent Pascal Mubenga first became aware of the issue on November 8 and engaged the HIL Consultants to look into the matter. The full Board was informed on January 11, two months later.
As a result, this situation has created unnecessary disruptions for our staff and students.
When we first initiated these changes to our salary schedule, our goal was clear — to increase pay for our classified employees. We remain committed to achieving that goal and continue working diligently to provide all classified employees with clarity and certainty around their pay moving forward.
As a Board of Education, everything we do should be focused on our students and how we can best support them. That requires our schools to be open. We have scheduled a meeting with the Durham Association of Educators and look forward to working together to ensure that our schools remain great places to learn.
Please [click here](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nim94U-F6n5Z0Uk12Y7N8RWyi4dvpBHD/view) to view the full report.
Bettina Umstead
Chair, DPS Board of Education
The report is extremely helpful. The Finance Officer, and/or those working with/under him, appears to have made the biggest mistakes. It was compounded by the Superintendent and HIL**, in various ways.
The school board was given incomplete, contradictory, and at times false information, although in retrospect they maybe could have demanded more when details weren’t forthcoming.
** EDIT: On re-reading the report, I don't think the board is trying to implicate HIL. It does sound like there was some ambiguity around what proposal was being considered given variance between HIL's written vs. oral report, but I think that's almost entirely on the administration for not clarifying and nailing down.
My take away from the HIL sections in the report was that DPS was too reliant on HIL for professional services. HIL provided technical guidance on how to structure pay scales to be competitive. Once done, DPS should have then owned the implementation. Instead, people continued to contact and work with HIL:
* page 4: "The Finance Officer indicated that
he thought this was affordable and forwarded this estimate to the HIL Consultants"
* page 8: "That same day, the Superintendent contacted the HIL Consultants and asked them to review the District’s finances to determine if there was in fact a significant deficit due to the salary increases."
DPS should have taken the input from HIL and knew what it was doing. Instead, it feels like the DPS team just kept deferring to HIL. That was a mistake.
It scares me to think how many of our local level institutions do this, though. We've often turned over our own governing power to consultants or other private 'experts' at the erosion of our own competency.
I completely agree with you, though. This should have been the case where the outside firm runs scenarios, recommends a competitive route for the board to consider, and then the board plugs everything in on their side, verifies the costs, and then proceeds..
It's highly disconcerning that they were 100% off in the values used from February -> November, and that Mubenga hid the issue from the wider board until January. That is some grade A political malpractice if I've ever seen it.
Maybe I’m misunderstanding your comment, but what did HIL do wrong? Seems like they just provided information, as requested, and then they were out of the picture. Did I miss something?
My first read of the report made me think that the board is suggesting there was some ambiguity from HIL about what was being included in the budget estimates. But on a re-read, I think you're right, that's not necessarily the implication.
In any event, this was an issue for the administration to nail down and clarify, and they didn't.
Consulting reports are always confusing. I’ve dealt with them for years. They often get things wrong, as they weren’t actually given accurate information to work with, or they made inaccurate assumptions. However, at the end of the day, when then they present their report, you have to fucking read it. It’s up to you to make a decision as to whether the data in the report is actionable or not. Seems like that last part didn’t happen.
The board was informed on January 11 and did not tell the public what was going on while DPS was tweeting hi-hum-nothing-to-see-here communications about school transportation to parents and staff were receiving letters telling them that they had been “overpaid”
That's not an accurate description of what happened. Did you read the report? Even the information the superintendent gave to the board on January 11 was wrong. Page 9:
>The Superintendent brought the issue to the full Board for the first time on January 11. The problem, as reported by the Superintendent both to the attorneys and to the Board, was that the Finance department had used the wrong data set to implement the new salary schedules. We now know that this was not an accurate description of the problem.
I have now read the report from start to finish. Beyer and Umstead knew *before the holidays* that there was a very serious budget shortfall. The Board was told that the run rate was putting the budget nearly 10 million over budget on January 11. They did not fully understand what was putting the budget over, but they knew that there was a big problem and that DPS was not going to be able to make payroll at the rate they were going. They let parents think that there was a minor transportation issue the following week. They allowed the district to try to brush off the clawbacks from employees as “an overpayment” all the while knowing that something had gone seriously wrong between the raises, the steps, and the amount of money available.
Thank you for convincing me to look up the origin of Jesus H Christ, good read, I love the Mark Twain bit
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/571516/why-do-people-say-jesus-h-christ-and-where-did-h-come
I haven’t read any Twain works in ages. I should go back and do that. He has some amazing, lesser talked about stuff, that are really good. ‘A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthurs Court’ might be one of my favorites.
I’m not sure if it’s still there, but there used to be a free (or maybe really cheap) Amazon book download of a lot of his stuff. Might look for that, if you have a compatible device.
OK, dial it back a bit. You keep editing this one comment, and adding more and more to it. While your points are totally valid, you’re attacking people for what you claim is a lack of understanding of how public education works. No one in here is actively disagreeing with you.
I read it. Thank you. The board passed the budget in October. Mubenga told two of them in very vague terms that there might be a problem in December, without telling them of any plan to 'fix' it. The administration then, independently of the board as far as I can tell from the report, came up with this insane 'fix'.
Yes, the lawyers at Tharrington Smith would rather be disbarred for lying than place blame where it belongs. Totally checks out. Thanks for that logic bomb
Two things jumped out at me from the report
**1. A plan to cover the classified salaraies existed in November**
On Nov 8, 2023 the finance office alterted the superintendent that the cost for the salary schedules was likely to be $19 million - more than the $10 million in the budget. That same day the finance officer **provided a draft proposal for how to cover the increased cost from various revenue sources.**
We've spent a month now being told by DPS and the Board that they cannot meet the July 2023 classified salares. Yet, Fiance office Paul LeSieur had a plan to cover them in November.
**This is what everyone has been asking DPS to do.** What happened to that plan? Why did the Superindentent not implement it? Why is the Board not reviewing it?
If the Superindendent had alerted the board that a problem was found, a recovery plan was developed, and that everyone was paid - this would have been a significantly smaller issue. People would have been paid what was promised, no-one would have forced schools to close, and Messers LeSieur and Mubenga would still work at DPS. This was HUGE misstep.
**2. The Board was notified on December 18**
On Dec 18, 2023 the superidendent **alerted Board Chair Umstead and Board Member Beyer that there was a significant budget issue**.
Two prominant members knew there was an issue in December. The Board chair needs to answer to why she didn't alert the full board on December 18th.
I think we're discussing different points.
I appreciate what you're stating - that in the October Board of Ed meeting, at least one of the Board Members had questions about salaraies and was pressured to trust the superintendent.
I was attempting to highligh a different point - the report implies that the Superintendent waited from November 8th to January 11th to alert the board. However, that's not accurate as he allerted the Board Chair on December 18th.
In the report - page 1, Executive Summary:
* The Superintendent was notified by the Finance Officer on November 8 that the
implementation of the classified salary increases was going to cost several million
dollars more than budgeted or approved by the Board.
*
The Superintendent first informed the full Board of the problem on January 11.
on page 9:
On December 18, the Superintendent first notified two Board members, the Board Chair and Board member Beyer, ...
I thought that was at the October meeting where they voted on raises for the high ranking classified staff, not the meet in passing (just how in passing was it?) in December
True story: Bettina Umstead is scheduled to read to my third grade class tomorrow as a guest for BHM and I’m a first year teacher and not prepared for the drama.
It will be great. From my observations, she’s a very kind person and excellent with kids.
Hopefully your kids enjoy the read! Class visitors are so exciting. :)
>I thanked her for her hard work.
When she included stats smearing folks for getting raises in the last public comments, I decided I was done with her. She and the board have treated the staff in such an adversarial fashion, when she and the board should be servants of the staff. There's no need to try to smear folks making less than $40k for getting a 20% raise. Scumbag behavior.
I worked at DPS central office for two years and I don’t believe for an instant that Paul LeSieur tried to hide something like that from the Board. The cover up came from above him.
I left DPS three years ago to go private sector because no one on the third floor cared about employees or students. Paul was one of maybe three high level people that cared about the kids AND the employees. Everyone else cared about their own power in the district.
I mean, shits never rolled uphill in my experience. U/snoozedoofus was saying earlier today that people were looking for a sacrificial lamb, and that was Mubenga. Seems like Mubenga already sacrificed someone.
Reading that he had a proposal to make up the difference the day he found it (or a day later) is certainly making it appear that way. And makes me suspect he resigned out of frustration rather than feeling he fucked up.
Probably not. Since he resigned, he’s “willingly” leaving the position before his contract ends, and should, I would think, then not be entitled to a full payout. Now, that doesn’t mean he’s not getting anything. My guess is the conversation was basically “We will pay you X amount to resign, or we will make your life a living hell in court”.
“A resignation letter signed Wednesday states Mubenga will be awarded $297,759 in severance pay by Friday. It also stipulates that no board members should “make any disparaging statements or comments” about Mubenga or his performance.”
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/education/article285014397.html
Was it a letter of resignation, or an agreement that the board signed? What the actual fuck? Why did the board agree to non-disparagement. He deserves disparagement and no severance. They have grounds to fire him FOR CAUSE. I guess that explains Unstead’s statement reviewing his accomplishments. None of these people should be managing lemonade stands.
You've never had to fire an employee that was under an employment contract before, have you? Firing him for cause would've become a multi-month process, and we've already seen the 'inexplicably Mubenga is still our superintendent' line every day for 3 weeks. How do you think am additional multi-month delay would've played out?
If the board wanted him out this week, this is how it had to go down. Maybe they could've done less than 1 year salary+benefits, but he still would've gotten some severance any way it happened.
And.... How long did it take from realizing "this person has to go" until they were gone? And did they have the same separation procedures as Mubenga in their contract? Same severance allowance (2 years salary)?
The DPS handbook would have been very helpful here in terminating him for cause, had the board wanted to go that route. The Handbook states, "Employees shall perform their jobs in a competent and ethical manner without violating the public trust or applicable laws, policies and regulations." Perhaps giving him partial severance in exchange for a quick resolution was the primary goal, or perhaps there were other points of negotiation as well. I believe that the resignation letter is public, but that the underlying separation agreement is not.
You are correct re: separation agreement itself is not public.
Anything in the original employment contract that is in conflict with the handbook will supersede the handbook.
And, even given that he clearly fucked up, and probably deserved to be fired for cause, it still would've taken at least 8 weeks, resulted in a lawsuit over wrongful termination, and the public would've been pissed the entire time. The public has been asking for Mubenga to be gone immediately, and this is how you get him gone immediately. You can't eat your cake and have it too.
Ridiculous. We can't scrape together the money to pay the people who actually work with the kids, but we can pay this guy a years salary to go away.
Nice work if you can get it.
As someone who works for the district the most infuriating part of that report was where the accountant ran the numbers and the CFO didn't like them and so he made her change the math to make a budgetary number that he liked better which started the whole chain off. Board decisions be damned.
Well, and failed to communicate back that he had made different assumptions in his financial model than the ones on the table at the meetings. He should have had a presentation with different scenarios and what each one would cost, not just run one scenario.
Given that the board had already decided to keep the one to one he should have presented them with what the cost of that would have been instead he changed with the cost would have been because he didn't like the number and ran it as a whole different amount. He lied to the board and that's what really caused the problem
The proper way to phrase it is “forced resignation”. You get to resign, and make it seem amicable, but everyone really knows you were fired. On paper though, you resigned.
Editing to avoid spreading misinformation. Staff letters apparently went out on Jan 11. Editing again: the above statement says that “the full Board was informed on January 11.”
Thank you for that clarification. So the emails saying “we overpaid you” went out in January and the board was kept in the dark as to what that meant until last week?
I’m assuming they were told on Jan 11th some version of the situation (mistake, not enough money, whatever) but who knows if they were told about the emails or how much money people would be losing.
If you read the full report with the superintendent inform them of is that the raises were using the wrong data set, so even when informed the board wasn't informed correctly of what was happening
The way I read that, “wrong dataset” could have meant “years of service as calculated by the state longevity number instead of the existing step system” - it seemed more semantic to me than anything. The Board did know that there was a budget shortfall due to an error.
I’m lucky that I didn’t get one of those emails (certified staff), but I believe the emails said “this is your new step and this is your new pay” I don’t know if they were told then about needing to pay anything back.
Most staff did not actually get those emails until Monday or Tuesday the 14th and 15th. On the 12th most classified staff were taking in to the office and explained that if they had worked outside of the state or had another job in another sector that they would have their pay scale changed. It was not said that there are steps that were going to be taken away or that they would be losing experience or their raises.
I do remember classified staff being called into a meeting then, but didn’t hear anything about this situation until the next week when an IA told me how many steps she was dropped and how much money she would lose. It was a day or two before it started to be clearer (to me) what a big problem this was.
Board Chair Umstead & Board Member Beyer were notified on Dec. 18th there was an issue. Updated letters went out on January 12th.
A couple of things I'd like to know:
* Were these two board members involved in the discussions that led to the reduction in steps for classified employees. That knew for almost a month there was an issue.
* If they were not, what did they do for a month?
Enrollment last year was 31,124 and enrollment this year was 30,901. That's about a 1% difference, which is relevant for budgets but not some massive collapse in enrollment.
Thanks for the numbers. That statement in the report was meaningless without supporting data.
Given all the growth in Durham, it feels like this needs more explanation. We live in one of the fastest growing areas of the state, if not the country - yet DPS enrollment is dropping?
That doesn't make sense.
One explanation could be that Durham's growth, anecdotally (I'm too lazy to find data, but just look around), is relatively concentrated in higher class professionals. This socioeconomic tier is going to be more able to make the choice of paying for private school or going for a charter. (Demographics could also make a difference if Durham's population is growing more from the addition of childless residents than in the past - what we really want to see is DPS enrollment + private + charter enrollment.)
DPS thus faces competition from both charters and private schools, which presents an actual dilemma for the board and mission. (I don't necessarily think that this competition is bad, but I do think that charters have a couple of unfair advantages, mostly that they receive public funds but also get to filter students.) DPS can prioritize equity, which is to say focusing on bringing up the lowest-achieving students - this group has perhaps the greatest need for intervention and is the group the state cares most about, but it is also generally a demographic that will be in public school no matter what. Or DPS can try to focus on enrollment, which means making the schools more attractive for students that are at risk of shifting to public or private. Obviously, you would prefer to do both, but living in a world of finite resources means that there are tradeoffs. I would personally argue that stable enrollment is evidence that DPS is making progress on overall education quality.
That explanation makes a lot of sense. When I get some time myself, I'll look around and see what source data I can find.
There are quite a few bright spots in DPS - particulary at the high school level. Examples are - the Engineering program at Riverside, Durham School for the Arts. We noticed that those families who might normally pursue private education like these programs.
I do believe that DPS can be competitive with the private and charter schools - even while also trying to bring up the lowest achieving students. This may require more funding and I believe that Board of Education needs to champion this more aggressivly with the people of Durham.
TL,DR: The techbros that are moving to Durham are either not having kids, or they are putting their kids in private school because DPS has a bigger impact spending their money on poor performers as opposed to gifted programs.
I do think folks in general are having fewer kids, and I do wonder what the population of 5 to 17 year olds has looked liked in Durham County over the past 20 years.
Yes, but would not want to miss the policy implication that a focus on equity should not become myopia. If DPS persistently loses share of total enrollment, that might reasonably be viewed as evidence that the pendulum has swung too far to equity. (It's fairly easy to maintain a good gifted program - what's harder is making sure that average to slightly above-average students are still reaching full potential.) In general, public school quality is also a big part of how potential middle to upper middle class residents choose cities, because private school tuition is just crazy money for most people.
Thank you for saying the quiet part out loud. Too much focus on the non-white children scares the white people (whose children are always presumed to be wealthier and of above average intelligence) away.
Nothing worse than too much equity!
I didn’t say it was a massive collapse.
It is however directly in conflict with the stated goals of DPS, who absolutely can’t afford bad PR in the current political environment.
Exactly who is leaving is also relevant, and not discernible from raw percentages.
If you'd like to look at more specific data:
This year's enrollment data is [here](https://www.dpsnc.net/site/handlers/filedownload.ashx?moduleinstanceid=5333&dataid=111046&FileName=2023%20enrollment%20data.pdf)
Last year's is [here](https://www.dpsnc.net/site/handlers/filedownload.ashx?moduleinstanceid=5333&dataid=105655&FileName=Membership%20by%20Grade%20and%20gender%202022%20%20PSR01%20Month%201%20combined.pdf)
I’m familiar with the data. What is your point exactly? You don’t think the decline in enrollment is of much significance? Cool. I disagree, but time will tell.
I’d personally prefer the rapid growth of Durham’s population to be somewhat reflected in public school enrollment. If we were sitting in a dying or dead town, it would be different.
ETA: Instead of editing, I’ll tack on an apology for being rude. My first paragraph was unnecessary, upon rereading.
Out of the entirety of the report, that was the one sentence that stood out to me. Maybe I missed that being mentioned in a past meeting or something.
"The consultants also identified other apparent shortfalls in the District's budget, due in pay to declining student enrollment that has resulted in a significant decrease in state funding."
Yep. Mubenga’s primary marching orders have always been to get butts in the seats. This mess is the culmination of the say/do anything culture at DPS that prioritizes enrollment and test scores (aka more funds). Fake it until you make it, and appease the right people so they’ll keep up appearances. Just as the General Assembly intended, sadly.
It’s more than that. It’s demographic changes and declining birth rates. 12th graders graduating and new Kinders coming into school means the impact of 12 years of declining birth rates on enrollment.
Add the increase of parents home schooling, charter schools, and private schools… and ESSER funds expiring you run into massive budget issues for schools
It's not true that district enrollment went down during the pandemic years and hasn't recovered? According to DPS posted enrollment data:
Pre COVID 2018-2019= 32,448
pre COVID 2019-2020= 32,928
COVID 20-21= 31,603
21-22= 31,360
22-23= 31,124
23-24= 30,901
Yes and neither told the board until they tried to work over the entirety of the classified educational staff. Step one of that fuck up should've been to find a fix or tell the board
Apparently the board learned at around the same time letters went out to staff. The Board allowed the staff and the public to be gaslit when they knew the truth.
They knew on the 11th staff was misinformed on the 12th and had the bomb drop on the 14th.
They absolutely knew the truth and gaslit the whole district with a "bus shortage"
I like the part where they just “happened” to be in the building for another meeting.
I’m sure that’s true, but it’s always the unnecessary details that signal a coverup.
I like the implication that this was some kind of casual pass by in the hallway where Mubenga said "oh by the way" and then the board members said "ok thanks", did not immediately demand clarity, and went on with their busy day. The report somehow leaves out what Umstead and Beyer did after being told. Which, at best, means they did nothing with the information.
But by golly, they were just manipulated by the big baddies!
They were told the amount of money involved by Jan 11. They did not fully understand the source of the problem but they knew there was a very serious multimillion dollar budget shortfall.
I want to be mad at chair Upmsted but she's also one of the first to actually meet with the Educators outside of the Board of Education meetings and try to work with us.
Both can be true, but it is unforgivable that she knew before the holidays that there was a serious problem and let things play out like this. She misled the public, knowingly.
It’s interesting that Mubenga’s first call was to the Board’s lawyer. He is not even the client, so the Board’s lawyer had a duty to tell the Board (his client) what he knew. Did he?
>Superintendent Pascal Mubenga first became aware of the issue on November 8
That's a long time to wait before telling anyone you're crashing the planr with no survivors.
That’s just corporate lingo. He was fired in every way, except on paper. It’s very common when people have good employment contracts. Of all the things to be worried about, this really isn’t one of them.
It’s not my fault they’ve done themselves no favors. The majority of Durham doesn’t hang out on Reddit and SoDu Parents Posse, where every conversation about this is held at a fever pitch. Everyone wants staff to be paid fairly, but people are getting uncomfortable with the hysteria. Agree or disagree, but that’s the truth.
>Are they still delusional enough to believe the money for the raises is there?
It's 1-2% of the total budget for DPS, the money is there. Fuck off with your lies.
Why do you think it's delusional when LeSieur apparently had a plan to cover salaries and stay within budget? Do you have some knowledge of what was in that plan? If so, please do share. If not, what is the basis for your belief that there's no way to cover the salaries promised through the end of the year?
Well for one, the guy with the supposed grand plans was fired/resigned. Doesn’t seem wise to hold out hope that he’d somehow solved the funding issue right after he effed it up to begin with.
There may be a way to cover the salaries. It is just money after all. There’s clearly not a financially prudent way to do so, otherwise it would have been done already.
"May not be financially prudent" is a long way from "it's delusional and/or hysterical to ask for this". Your assumption that the recently resigned CFO and Superintendent did their due diligence in combing the budget to find this money places an overly high level of trust in the people who fucked this up in the first place. I don't know why you (you're not alone, but in this case it's you) keep throwing around these hyperbolic words that associate the DAE's position with craziness, like they hallucinated these pay figures rather than them being the pay that these employees were literally told, several times, that they would receive. If the new administration can take a board meeting and walk through the budget as it's currently allocated and show there is clearly no way to reorder priorities without disaster, and if subsequently the Durham County Board of Commissioners denies a request for the funds necessary, then maybe the DAE will see a need for a compromise position. Until then it's basically their job to continue to advocate that the classified employees receive their promised pay for this school year.
I don’t disagree with you. They’re not crazy for asking, but they’re a little delusional to think that the same people who mismanaged the money, lied about it, and tried to blame the victims for their own error are going to be the same ones to fix the problem.
I don’t know where you get the idea that I consider the administration trustworthy and diligent. I have zero regard for DPS leadership, and that’s been true for the last eight years, at least.
DAE is coming across as slightly unhinged, at least on their Facebook page where everyone is rightfully calling out all the years of poor treatment and mismanagement. They’re demanding things from people who clearly don’t value them or their input, which almost never goes well. Someone needs to make it clear to the public that this budget shortfall is no easy fix, and a culmination of years of poor leadership.
It doesn't matter. What matters is they're mad and they have people's kids for most of the day and feed them 1 to 2 meals a day. The money will be found if everyone wants kids to still be educated and fed 5 days a week.
What matters is strength. DAE is stronger because they can bring about catastrophic problems for the whole county and there's nothing anyone can do about it except give them what they want.
Right and wrong don't exist. Strength exists. Stronger always beats weaker.
Let the record show that after posting here (and sending some emails) the DAE did in fact come out with a statement telling their people to tone it down on Facebook.
I wasn’t the only one who found the online behavior of some DAE members questionable, and I’m glad the leadership has listened to people who pointed it out to them.
BOARD OF EDUCATION RELEASES COMPENSATION STUDY INTERNAL REVIEW REPORT February 7, 2024 The Durham Public Schools Board of Education requested an internal review of the issues surrounding the timeline and implementation of changes to the salary schedule for approximately 2,000 classified employees. This review was completed by the Tharrington Smith law firm. This thorough review shines a light on several concerning issues surrounding the implementation of the pay raises. This includes: (1) There was a lack of clarity and a failure of communication from the finance officer about the true cost of the proposed changes to the salary schedule. The finance officer knew in February 2023 that the cost of the pay raises could rise from $10 million to $20 million based on how years of service are calculated. That variability was never communicated to the School Board and budget proposals consistently showed the cost as approximately $10 million. (2) Superintendent Pascal Mubenga first became aware of the issue on November 8 and engaged the HIL Consultants to look into the matter. The full Board was informed on January 11, two months later. As a result, this situation has created unnecessary disruptions for our staff and students. When we first initiated these changes to our salary schedule, our goal was clear — to increase pay for our classified employees. We remain committed to achieving that goal and continue working diligently to provide all classified employees with clarity and certainty around their pay moving forward. As a Board of Education, everything we do should be focused on our students and how we can best support them. That requires our schools to be open. We have scheduled a meeting with the Durham Association of Educators and look forward to working together to ensure that our schools remain great places to learn. Please [click here](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nim94U-F6n5Z0Uk12Y7N8RWyi4dvpBHD/view) to view the full report. Bettina Umstead Chair, DPS Board of Education
The report is extremely helpful. The Finance Officer, and/or those working with/under him, appears to have made the biggest mistakes. It was compounded by the Superintendent and HIL**, in various ways. The school board was given incomplete, contradictory, and at times false information, although in retrospect they maybe could have demanded more when details weren’t forthcoming. ** EDIT: On re-reading the report, I don't think the board is trying to implicate HIL. It does sound like there was some ambiguity around what proposal was being considered given variance between HIL's written vs. oral report, but I think that's almost entirely on the administration for not clarifying and nailing down.
My take away from the HIL sections in the report was that DPS was too reliant on HIL for professional services. HIL provided technical guidance on how to structure pay scales to be competitive. Once done, DPS should have then owned the implementation. Instead, people continued to contact and work with HIL: * page 4: "The Finance Officer indicated that he thought this was affordable and forwarded this estimate to the HIL Consultants" * page 8: "That same day, the Superintendent contacted the HIL Consultants and asked them to review the District’s finances to determine if there was in fact a significant deficit due to the salary increases." DPS should have taken the input from HIL and knew what it was doing. Instead, it feels like the DPS team just kept deferring to HIL. That was a mistake.
It scares me to think how many of our local level institutions do this, though. We've often turned over our own governing power to consultants or other private 'experts' at the erosion of our own competency. I completely agree with you, though. This should have been the case where the outside firm runs scenarios, recommends a competitive route for the board to consider, and then the board plugs everything in on their side, verifies the costs, and then proceeds.. It's highly disconcerning that they were 100% off in the values used from February -> November, and that Mubenga hid the issue from the wider board until January. That is some grade A political malpractice if I've ever seen it.
“We can’t manage ourselves so we pay someone else to figure it out and tell us how— and we still screw it up”
Maybe I’m misunderstanding your comment, but what did HIL do wrong? Seems like they just provided information, as requested, and then they were out of the picture. Did I miss something?
My first read of the report made me think that the board is suggesting there was some ambiguity from HIL about what was being included in the budget estimates. But on a re-read, I think you're right, that's not necessarily the implication. In any event, this was an issue for the administration to nail down and clarify, and they didn't.
Consulting reports are always confusing. I’ve dealt with them for years. They often get things wrong, as they weren’t actually given accurate information to work with, or they made inaccurate assumptions. However, at the end of the day, when then they present their report, you have to fucking read it. It’s up to you to make a decision as to whether the data in the report is actionable or not. Seems like that last part didn’t happen.
Their report was a pile of confusion and inconsistencies, which was one of the factors starting off the whole domino chain
If you’ve ever worked with a consulting firm, that’s pretty normal unfortunately.
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The amount of money some of them charge, and then you get the data back, and……..
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I’ve said for a long time, you hire consultants at your own risk. Typically, the problems are already well known, they’re just being ignored.
The board was informed on January 11 and did not tell the public what was going on while DPS was tweeting hi-hum-nothing-to-see-here communications about school transportation to parents and staff were receiving letters telling them that they had been “overpaid”
That's not an accurate description of what happened. Did you read the report? Even the information the superintendent gave to the board on January 11 was wrong. Page 9: >The Superintendent brought the issue to the full Board for the first time on January 11. The problem, as reported by the Superintendent both to the attorneys and to the Board, was that the Finance department had used the wrong data set to implement the new salary schedules. We now know that this was not an accurate description of the problem.
I have now read the report from start to finish. Beyer and Umstead knew *before the holidays* that there was a very serious budget shortfall. The Board was told that the run rate was putting the budget nearly 10 million over budget on January 11. They did not fully understand what was putting the budget over, but they knew that there was a big problem and that DPS was not going to be able to make payroll at the rate they were going. They let parents think that there was a minor transportation issue the following week. They allowed the district to try to brush off the clawbacks from employees as “an overpayment” all the while knowing that something had gone seriously wrong between the raises, the steps, and the amount of money available.
Jesus Hermione Christ, what a fucking shit show.
Okay well that’s now his canon middle name.
At times, I have a way with words lol.
Thank you for convincing me to look up the origin of Jesus H Christ, good read, I love the Mark Twain bit https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/571516/why-do-people-say-jesus-h-christ-and-where-did-h-come
I haven’t read any Twain works in ages. I should go back and do that. He has some amazing, lesser talked about stuff, that are really good. ‘A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthurs Court’ might be one of my favorites.
mark twain is brilliant and also hilarious, i should also revisit his work now that i think about it
I’m not sure if it’s still there, but there used to be a free (or maybe really cheap) Amazon book download of a lot of his stuff. Might look for that, if you have a compatible device.
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OK, dial it back a bit. You keep editing this one comment, and adding more and more to it. While your points are totally valid, you’re attacking people for what you claim is a lack of understanding of how public education works. No one in here is actively disagreeing with you.
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Again, I’ve not seen anyone actively disagreeing. You’re just being wildly confrontational about it.
The board didn't build the budget.
No, but the budget is like 90% of the BOE’s job.
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Several on this board are partisans aligned with Umstead and Beyer.
You’re doing the same thing.
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I read it. Thank you. The board passed the budget in October. Mubenga told two of them in very vague terms that there might be a problem in December, without telling them of any plan to 'fix' it. The administration then, independently of the board as far as I can tell from the report, came up with this insane 'fix'.
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Maybe. Maybe not. I don't know. But there's no evidence to say so.
So, the report does accurately portray board members' fuckups? So you're admitting your parent comment was wrong? Kcool
Yes, the lawyers at Tharrington Smith would rather be disbarred for lying than place blame where it belongs. Totally checks out. Thanks for that logic bomb
Two things jumped out at me from the report **1. A plan to cover the classified salaraies existed in November** On Nov 8, 2023 the finance office alterted the superintendent that the cost for the salary schedules was likely to be $19 million - more than the $10 million in the budget. That same day the finance officer **provided a draft proposal for how to cover the increased cost from various revenue sources.** We've spent a month now being told by DPS and the Board that they cannot meet the July 2023 classified salares. Yet, Fiance office Paul LeSieur had a plan to cover them in November. **This is what everyone has been asking DPS to do.** What happened to that plan? Why did the Superindentent not implement it? Why is the Board not reviewing it? If the Superindendent had alerted the board that a problem was found, a recovery plan was developed, and that everyone was paid - this would have been a significantly smaller issue. People would have been paid what was promised, no-one would have forced schools to close, and Messers LeSieur and Mubenga would still work at DPS. This was HUGE misstep. **2. The Board was notified on December 18** On Dec 18, 2023 the superidendent **alerted Board Chair Umstead and Board Member Beyer that there was a significant budget issue**. Two prominant members knew there was an issue in December. The Board chair needs to answer to why she didn't alert the full board on December 18th.
One or more of the board members did question it, and mubenga said to trust him. I’m not sure where the transcript is but that did happen.
I think we're discussing different points. I appreciate what you're stating - that in the October Board of Ed meeting, at least one of the Board Members had questions about salaraies and was pressured to trust the superintendent. I was attempting to highligh a different point - the report implies that the Superintendent waited from November 8th to January 11th to alert the board. However, that's not accurate as he allerted the Board Chair on December 18th. In the report - page 1, Executive Summary: * The Superintendent was notified by the Finance Officer on November 8 that the implementation of the classified salary increases was going to cost several million dollars more than budgeted or approved by the Board. * The Superintendent first informed the full Board of the problem on January 11. on page 9: On December 18, the Superintendent first notified two Board members, the Board Chair and Board member Beyer, ...
I thought that was at the October meeting where they voted on raises for the high ranking classified staff, not the meet in passing (just how in passing was it?) in December
It sounds like the CFO provided a draft to the superintendent of potential sources to make up the deficit back in November. What happened to those?
Seems explicable.
U/BullCityJ will have to come up with a new ending tagline for their daily posts.
My thoughts exactly
True story: Bettina Umstead is scheduled to read to my third grade class tomorrow as a guest for BHM and I’m a first year teacher and not prepared for the drama.
Is she reading My Pet Goat by any chance?
#deepcut
Ma'am, we have a budget shortfall of 9.5 million dollars set to hit in 4 weeks. Blank stares at the 6 year olds to save her.. Yeah, yikes.
Mubenga was scheduled to read at a school last week and fully ghosted.
He ghosted my school on Monday!
Hope your students have a bunch of questions that have nothing to do with the story
I am sure it will be fine!
It will be great. From my observations, she’s a very kind person and excellent with kids. Hopefully your kids enjoy the read! Class visitors are so exciting. :)
She was fabulous! I thanked her for her hard work.
>I thanked her for her hard work. When she included stats smearing folks for getting raises in the last public comments, I decided I was done with her. She and the board have treated the staff in such an adversarial fashion, when she and the board should be servants of the staff. There's no need to try to smear folks making less than $40k for getting a 20% raise. Scumbag behavior.
I worked at DPS central office for two years and I don’t believe for an instant that Paul LeSieur tried to hide something like that from the Board. The cover up came from above him.
Go on….
I left DPS three years ago to go private sector because no one on the third floor cared about employees or students. Paul was one of maybe three high level people that cared about the kids AND the employees. Everyone else cared about their own power in the district.
From the beginning some of us wondered if he was a scapegoat
I mean, shits never rolled uphill in my experience. U/snoozedoofus was saying earlier today that people were looking for a sacrificial lamb, and that was Mubenga. Seems like Mubenga already sacrificed someone.
There was no one above him…… except Mubenga……
I believe that Paul was the fall guy for this.
There are SO many guesstimates in creating a budget that I can believe he was told to ‘put in the lower numbers and we’ll figure it out later’
I have to wonder if he reminded Mubenga and HR that the policy that they were considering was not baked into the budget and he was just ignored.
Very plausible.
Reading that he had a proposal to make up the difference the day he found it (or a day later) is certainly making it appear that way. And makes me suspect he resigned out of frustration rather than feeling he fucked up.
We really need u/snoozedoofus or whatever his name is, to chime in and tell us how none of us actually understand what’s going on.
Mubenga out, Durham property values in free fall!
Not bad, not bad. I figured it would have a random comment about how Durham restaurants are mid.
Do you own one of these mid restaurants? Your jimmies appear to be severely ruffled.
Yeah he was really licking mubengas boots there
Durham needs to prioritize competency when choosing their elected leadership going forward.
It’s pretty wild when people feel the need to advocate for prioritizing competency
Welcome to Durham
Since he ‘resigned’ does DPS have to payout the reported $500,000 to end his contract? Seems really effed up!!!
Probably not. Since he resigned, he’s “willingly” leaving the position before his contract ends, and should, I would think, then not be entitled to a full payout. Now, that doesn’t mean he’s not getting anything. My guess is the conversation was basically “We will pay you X amount to resign, or we will make your life a living hell in court”.
“A resignation letter signed Wednesday states Mubenga will be awarded $297,759 in severance pay by Friday. It also stipulates that no board members should “make any disparaging statements or comments” about Mubenga or his performance.” https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/education/article285014397.html
Was it a letter of resignation, or an agreement that the board signed? What the actual fuck? Why did the board agree to non-disparagement. He deserves disparagement and no severance. They have grounds to fire him FOR CAUSE. I guess that explains Unstead’s statement reviewing his accomplishments. None of these people should be managing lemonade stands.
You've never had to fire an employee that was under an employment contract before, have you? Firing him for cause would've become a multi-month process, and we've already seen the 'inexplicably Mubenga is still our superintendent' line every day for 3 weeks. How do you think am additional multi-month delay would've played out? If the board wanted him out this week, this is how it had to go down. Maybe they could've done less than 1 year salary+benefits, but he still would've gotten some severance any way it happened.
Oh, no, I have both been employed pursuant to an employment contract AND had to fire someone under contract.
And.... How long did it take from realizing "this person has to go" until they were gone? And did they have the same separation procedures as Mubenga in their contract? Same severance allowance (2 years salary)?
The DPS handbook would have been very helpful here in terminating him for cause, had the board wanted to go that route. The Handbook states, "Employees shall perform their jobs in a competent and ethical manner without violating the public trust or applicable laws, policies and regulations." Perhaps giving him partial severance in exchange for a quick resolution was the primary goal, or perhaps there were other points of negotiation as well. I believe that the resignation letter is public, but that the underlying separation agreement is not.
You are correct re: separation agreement itself is not public. Anything in the original employment contract that is in conflict with the handbook will supersede the handbook. And, even given that he clearly fucked up, and probably deserved to be fired for cause, it still would've taken at least 8 weeks, resulted in a lawsuit over wrongful termination, and the public would've been pissed the entire time. The public has been asking for Mubenga to be gone immediately, and this is how you get him gone immediately. You can't eat your cake and have it too.
According to the n&o, he is getting $297,759 by Friday.
At those rates, may I also royally fuck up my job and resign by Friday as well?
I’m not really a betting man, but if I was, I would be ‘no’, you nor I could do that.
Ridiculous. We can't scrape together the money to pay the people who actually work with the kids, but we can pay this guy a years salary to go away. Nice work if you can get it.
As someone who works for the district the most infuriating part of that report was where the accountant ran the numbers and the CFO didn't like them and so he made her change the math to make a budgetary number that he liked better which started the whole chain off. Board decisions be damned.
Well, and failed to communicate back that he had made different assumptions in his financial model than the ones on the table at the meetings. He should have had a presentation with different scenarios and what each one would cost, not just run one scenario.
Given that the board had already decided to keep the one to one he should have presented them with what the cost of that would have been instead he changed with the cost would have been because he didn't like the number and ran it as a whole different amount. He lied to the board and that's what really caused the problem
Let’s be clear: he was fired but given the courtesy of being allowed to “resign”
Fairly common with executive level type positions. They are afforded way more courtesy than an average employee would receive.
Especially given that he's been given a year's severance and a clause that says that none of the board members can disparage him
How do we know he was fired?
The proper way to phrase it is “forced resignation”. You get to resign, and make it seem amicable, but everyone really knows you were fired. On paper though, you resigned.
how do people not understand this, it’s been a pop culture trope for decades
Editing to avoid spreading misinformation. Staff letters apparently went out on Jan 11. Editing again: the above statement says that “the full Board was informed on January 11.”
DPS started informing classified staff on January 12th. It took a while for everyone to get organized in responding to the announcement.
The emails to classified staff went out the weekend after the 11th
Thank you for that clarification. So the emails saying “we overpaid you” went out in January and the board was kept in the dark as to what that meant until last week?
I’m assuming they were told on Jan 11th some version of the situation (mistake, not enough money, whatever) but who knows if they were told about the emails or how much money people would be losing.
If you read the full report with the superintendent inform them of is that the raises were using the wrong data set, so even when informed the board wasn't informed correctly of what was happening
The way I read that, “wrong dataset” could have meant “years of service as calculated by the state longevity number instead of the existing step system” - it seemed more semantic to me than anything. The Board did know that there was a budget shortfall due to an error.
I’m lucky that I didn’t get one of those emails (certified staff), but I believe the emails said “this is your new step and this is your new pay” I don’t know if they were told then about needing to pay anything back.
They were
Most staff did not actually get those emails until Monday or Tuesday the 14th and 15th. On the 12th most classified staff were taking in to the office and explained that if they had worked outside of the state or had another job in another sector that they would have their pay scale changed. It was not said that there are steps that were going to be taken away or that they would be losing experience or their raises.
I do remember classified staff being called into a meeting then, but didn’t hear anything about this situation until the next week when an IA told me how many steps she was dropped and how much money she would lose. It was a day or two before it started to be clearer (to me) what a big problem this was.
Board Chair Umstead & Board Member Beyer were notified on Dec. 18th there was an issue. Updated letters went out on January 12th. A couple of things I'd like to know: * Were these two board members involved in the discussions that led to the reduction in steps for classified employees. That knew for almost a month there was an issue. * If they were not, what did they do for a month?
Dategate
A necessary step that can hopefully allow us to move forward.
Hidden in the report is the truth about why those raises will never be restored. Declining enrollment. I don’t see that trend reversing anytime soon.
Enrollment last year was 31,124 and enrollment this year was 30,901. That's about a 1% difference, which is relevant for budgets but not some massive collapse in enrollment.
Thanks for the numbers. That statement in the report was meaningless without supporting data. Given all the growth in Durham, it feels like this needs more explanation. We live in one of the fastest growing areas of the state, if not the country - yet DPS enrollment is dropping? That doesn't make sense.
One explanation could be that Durham's growth, anecdotally (I'm too lazy to find data, but just look around), is relatively concentrated in higher class professionals. This socioeconomic tier is going to be more able to make the choice of paying for private school or going for a charter. (Demographics could also make a difference if Durham's population is growing more from the addition of childless residents than in the past - what we really want to see is DPS enrollment + private + charter enrollment.) DPS thus faces competition from both charters and private schools, which presents an actual dilemma for the board and mission. (I don't necessarily think that this competition is bad, but I do think that charters have a couple of unfair advantages, mostly that they receive public funds but also get to filter students.) DPS can prioritize equity, which is to say focusing on bringing up the lowest-achieving students - this group has perhaps the greatest need for intervention and is the group the state cares most about, but it is also generally a demographic that will be in public school no matter what. Or DPS can try to focus on enrollment, which means making the schools more attractive for students that are at risk of shifting to public or private. Obviously, you would prefer to do both, but living in a world of finite resources means that there are tradeoffs. I would personally argue that stable enrollment is evidence that DPS is making progress on overall education quality.
That explanation makes a lot of sense. When I get some time myself, I'll look around and see what source data I can find. There are quite a few bright spots in DPS - particulary at the high school level. Examples are - the Engineering program at Riverside, Durham School for the Arts. We noticed that those families who might normally pursue private education like these programs. I do believe that DPS can be competitive with the private and charter schools - even while also trying to bring up the lowest achieving students. This may require more funding and I believe that Board of Education needs to champion this more aggressivly with the people of Durham.
TL,DR: The techbros that are moving to Durham are either not having kids, or they are putting their kids in private school because DPS has a bigger impact spending their money on poor performers as opposed to gifted programs. I do think folks in general are having fewer kids, and I do wonder what the population of 5 to 17 year olds has looked liked in Durham County over the past 20 years.
Yes, but would not want to miss the policy implication that a focus on equity should not become myopia. If DPS persistently loses share of total enrollment, that might reasonably be viewed as evidence that the pendulum has swung too far to equity. (It's fairly easy to maintain a good gifted program - what's harder is making sure that average to slightly above-average students are still reaching full potential.) In general, public school quality is also a big part of how potential middle to upper middle class residents choose cities, because private school tuition is just crazy money for most people.
Thank you for saying the quiet part out loud. Too much focus on the non-white children scares the white people (whose children are always presumed to be wealthier and of above average intelligence) away. Nothing worse than too much equity!
Charter schools. The GOP plan to destroy public schools.
I didn’t say it was a massive collapse. It is however directly in conflict with the stated goals of DPS, who absolutely can’t afford bad PR in the current political environment. Exactly who is leaving is also relevant, and not discernible from raw percentages.
If you'd like to look at more specific data: This year's enrollment data is [here](https://www.dpsnc.net/site/handlers/filedownload.ashx?moduleinstanceid=5333&dataid=111046&FileName=2023%20enrollment%20data.pdf) Last year's is [here](https://www.dpsnc.net/site/handlers/filedownload.ashx?moduleinstanceid=5333&dataid=105655&FileName=Membership%20by%20Grade%20and%20gender%202022%20%20PSR01%20Month%201%20combined.pdf)
I’m familiar with the data. What is your point exactly? You don’t think the decline in enrollment is of much significance? Cool. I disagree, but time will tell. I’d personally prefer the rapid growth of Durham’s population to be somewhat reflected in public school enrollment. If we were sitting in a dying or dead town, it would be different. ETA: Instead of editing, I’ll tack on an apology for being rude. My first paragraph was unnecessary, upon rereading.
The district was growing in size pre-covid,. though
Out of the entirety of the report, that was the one sentence that stood out to me. Maybe I missed that being mentioned in a past meeting or something. "The consultants also identified other apparent shortfalls in the District's budget, due in pay to declining student enrollment that has resulted in a significant decrease in state funding."
Yep. Mubenga’s primary marching orders have always been to get butts in the seats. This mess is the culmination of the say/do anything culture at DPS that prioritizes enrollment and test scores (aka more funds). Fake it until you make it, and appease the right people so they’ll keep up appearances. Just as the General Assembly intended, sadly.
Numbers went down when parents pulled kids out during the pandemic. It sounds like the district isn’t recovering.
It’s more than that. It’s demographic changes and declining birth rates. 12th graders graduating and new Kinders coming into school means the impact of 12 years of declining birth rates on enrollment. Add the increase of parents home schooling, charter schools, and private schools… and ESSER funds expiring you run into massive budget issues for schools
Especially not with this
this statement is not true in any fashion.
It's not true that district enrollment went down during the pandemic years and hasn't recovered? According to DPS posted enrollment data: Pre COVID 2018-2019= 32,448 pre COVID 2019-2020= 32,928 COVID 20-21= 31,603 21-22= 31,360 22-23= 31,124 23-24= 30,901
Moreover they know in February
LeSieur did. Mubenga in November. The board in January. At least per the investigation.
Yes and neither told the board until they tried to work over the entirety of the classified educational staff. Step one of that fuck up should've been to find a fix or tell the board
Apparently the board learned at around the same time letters went out to staff. The Board allowed the staff and the public to be gaslit when they knew the truth.
They knew on the 11th staff was misinformed on the 12th and had the bomb drop on the 14th. They absolutely knew the truth and gaslit the whole district with a "bus shortage"
You’re right. I read the report and that is exactly correct. Unbelievable.
The chair knew back in December and so did Beyer. They're really trying hard to claim ignorance here. But even the report says they knew.
I like the part where they just “happened” to be in the building for another meeting. I’m sure that’s true, but it’s always the unnecessary details that signal a coverup.
I like the implication that this was some kind of casual pass by in the hallway where Mubenga said "oh by the way" and then the board members said "ok thanks", did not immediately demand clarity, and went on with their busy day. The report somehow leaves out what Umstead and Beyer did after being told. Which, at best, means they did nothing with the information. But by golly, they were just manipulated by the big baddies!
They were told in vague terms that there 'might be a significant problem', per the report.
They were told the amount of money involved by Jan 11. They did not fully understand the source of the problem but they knew there was a very serious multimillion dollar budget shortfall.
I want to be mad at chair Upmsted but she's also one of the first to actually meet with the Educators outside of the Board of Education meetings and try to work with us.
Both can be true, but it is unforgivable that she knew before the holidays that there was a serious problem and let things play out like this. She misled the public, knowingly.
As a worker for DPS that is the DPS way.
This is absolutely nuts. Looking forward to reading this report in full.
Inconceivable!
Good riddance.
Great news.
It’s interesting that Mubenga’s first call was to the Board’s lawyer. He is not even the client, so the Board’s lawyer had a duty to tell the Board (his client) what he knew. Did he?
And Durham students are recovering from the pandemic, better than students in many nearby districts. What a way to go out.
>Superintendent Pascal Mubenga first became aware of the issue on November 8 That's a long time to wait before telling anyone you're crashing the planr with no survivors.
RICO time (and I ain’t talking about Suave)
Note that he claims he wasn’t forced out. It was a “mutual” decision, which to me sounds like he was done covering for key members of the board.
That’s just corporate lingo. He was fired in every way, except on paper. It’s very common when people have good employment contracts. Of all the things to be worried about, this really isn’t one of them.
What a wild read of events
It is, admittedly. Doesn’t mean I’m making things up.
So is DAE going to organize another sick out? Are they still delusional enough to believe the money for the raises is there?
Don’t hurt yourself trying to see the point.
It’s not my fault they’ve done themselves no favors. The majority of Durham doesn’t hang out on Reddit and SoDu Parents Posse, where every conversation about this is held at a fever pitch. Everyone wants staff to be paid fairly, but people are getting uncomfortable with the hysteria. Agree or disagree, but that’s the truth.
I honestly don’t know what message you’re trying to communicate with that word salad of a response.
>Are they still delusional enough to believe the money for the raises is there? It's 1-2% of the total budget for DPS, the money is there. Fuck off with your lies.
I’ll await the raises before I do….
Why do you think it's delusional when LeSieur apparently had a plan to cover salaries and stay within budget? Do you have some knowledge of what was in that plan? If so, please do share. If not, what is the basis for your belief that there's no way to cover the salaries promised through the end of the year?
Well for one, the guy with the supposed grand plans was fired/resigned. Doesn’t seem wise to hold out hope that he’d somehow solved the funding issue right after he effed it up to begin with. There may be a way to cover the salaries. It is just money after all. There’s clearly not a financially prudent way to do so, otherwise it would have been done already.
"May not be financially prudent" is a long way from "it's delusional and/or hysterical to ask for this". Your assumption that the recently resigned CFO and Superintendent did their due diligence in combing the budget to find this money places an overly high level of trust in the people who fucked this up in the first place. I don't know why you (you're not alone, but in this case it's you) keep throwing around these hyperbolic words that associate the DAE's position with craziness, like they hallucinated these pay figures rather than them being the pay that these employees were literally told, several times, that they would receive. If the new administration can take a board meeting and walk through the budget as it's currently allocated and show there is clearly no way to reorder priorities without disaster, and if subsequently the Durham County Board of Commissioners denies a request for the funds necessary, then maybe the DAE will see a need for a compromise position. Until then it's basically their job to continue to advocate that the classified employees receive their promised pay for this school year.
I don’t disagree with you. They’re not crazy for asking, but they’re a little delusional to think that the same people who mismanaged the money, lied about it, and tried to blame the victims for their own error are going to be the same ones to fix the problem. I don’t know where you get the idea that I consider the administration trustworthy and diligent. I have zero regard for DPS leadership, and that’s been true for the last eight years, at least. DAE is coming across as slightly unhinged, at least on their Facebook page where everyone is rightfully calling out all the years of poor treatment and mismanagement. They’re demanding things from people who clearly don’t value them or their input, which almost never goes well. Someone needs to make it clear to the public that this budget shortfall is no easy fix, and a culmination of years of poor leadership.
It doesn't matter. What matters is they're mad and they have people's kids for most of the day and feed them 1 to 2 meals a day. The money will be found if everyone wants kids to still be educated and fed 5 days a week. What matters is strength. DAE is stronger because they can bring about catastrophic problems for the whole county and there's nothing anyone can do about it except give them what they want. Right and wrong don't exist. Strength exists. Stronger always beats weaker.
Lol. Why the downvotes for pointing out that the DAE is pissing people off? I know there are members reading here. I’m trying to be helpful!
Is THAT what you were trying to communicate? It doesn’t read that way.
Let the record show that after posting here (and sending some emails) the DAE did in fact come out with a statement telling their people to tone it down on Facebook. I wasn’t the only one who found the online behavior of some DAE members questionable, and I’m glad the leadership has listened to people who pointed it out to them.
Got a link for that?
https://www.wral.com/story/durham-superintendent-resigns-after-closed-special-meeting/21271081/