Leadership, financial savvy are key for districts
Posted on Monday, July 21, 2008
Keeping a close eye on the district's finances and having the right superintendent in place might be more important than ever for school districts, as the Greenland and Decatur fiscal distress situations demonstrate.
Go off the wrong path and get in too deep of a hole, and Arkansas Education Commissioner Ken James might call upon the district to attend an annexation hearing the following month.
"I'd just say that all small- to mediumsized districts better have all their I's and T's dotted financially," former Greenland Board President Bill Groom said.
Greenland was spared annexation on July 14, when the Arkansas State Board of Education voted to seize control of the district for the foreseeable future instead of annexing it to another system. The state board will also consider a proposal to annex the Decatur school district in nearby Benton County at a meeting July 31.
"Ours came up extremely sudden, " Decatur Board of Education President Michael Wilkins said. "Our situation is somewhat different... but it's kind of the same result. "Both districts were given one month's notice to attend their respective annexation hearings. Greenland's came at a particularly surprising time for school officials, as district voters had just passed a tax increase three days before to generate more revenue in the coming years. "It looks like the state's ready to react immediately from the first time of trouble," now former Greenland Board of Education member Dennis Caudle said. "It could happen pretty quick," Groom said. Planning ahead for trouble While it has always been important to watch district finances, it might even be more important in this era, Robert Allen, an assistant superintendent at Huntsville and former Elkins school district superintendent, said. "It's more critical now than ever," Allen said. "I think some schools that were on fiscal distress probably would not have been put on it 10 years ago. I guess you might say there is more opportunity to be put on fiscal distress. "Huntsville Superintendent Shelby Sisemore recommended hiring Allen primarily to have more oversight of district finances. "You hate to use any of this as an example, but in a way, you almost have to. You can't get complacent about this (district finance ) stuff," Allen said. "It can happen, and I think it can happen pretty easily and pretty quickly if you're not careful about these things. "Ultimately, it is the state's responsibility to educate the child, Elkins Board of Education member Bob Warren said. That responsibility is administered through districts and school boards at a local level, and schools have a duty to manage their money wisely. "If everything is OK, so to speak, school boards and superintendents still need to work together to keep the school solvent," Warren said. There has to be trust between the superintendent and his school board, Prairie Grove Board of Education member Eric Walker said. At the same time, though, board members should not be afraid to ask questions. Wilkins said in retrospect, Decatur board members should have known something was off when the monthly financial statements they were receiving continued to show a similar financial balance month after month. "We just took too much for granted. That would be my advice, not to take stuff for granted," Wilkins said. "You have to trust the superintendent. He got kind of lackadaisical also. He was accepting the figures from our (former ) financial secretary. "Caudle said his advice for school boards now would be that if they are simply relying 100 percent on what the superintendent tells them, they should dig a little bit deeper just to be sure.
"That's one of the things that got us in trouble," he said. In hindsight, Caudle and Groom noted some of their troubles could have been averted had the district made staff cuts due to a declining enrollment, and the board was late to react. Some of the cuts they made this spring in preparation for 2008-09 should have been made for 2007-08, Caudle said. Without proper planning, it may be too late to make the major cuts a district
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