Monthly Archives: February 2019

Employee Compensation Update – Feb 27, 2019


Stan Jester
Board Of Education

Last year, Management Advisory Group (MAG) completed a Salary and Compensation Study for the DeKalb County School District.

From this study, the school district intended on moving to a competitive salary schedule for all employees. That is apparently more difficult than it sounds. Every month they come up with a new and improved version of the salary schedule.

SUPPORTING DOCUMENTS
  MAG Salary and Compensation Study – Classified Employees
  January 7th Approved E Scale (and revised Z, G, N, LT) Salary Scales
  FY 2019 Teacher Salary Comparisons

Certified Employees, like teachers, seem to be set in stone now. Teachers will see their new salaries in their March 29 checks. Teacher contracts are going out by March 5 along with communication about what schedule and step they are on.

DeKalb Schools is going back to the drawing board for classified staff, everyone not certified. Superintendent Green has reached out to Gwinnett Schools to enlist their help.

Linda Woodard, who has come out of retirement, is running the HCM department. She and a few retired human resources people from Gwinnett schools are going to revisit the classified salary schedules over the next 3 months.


Employee Compensation Update

Linda Woodard

Linda Woodard
Interim Chief Human Capital Management Officer

Greetings Valued DeKalb County School District Employee!

Human Capital Mangement (HCM) is pleased to announce that salaries and job descriptions are under review. This is an effort to ensure that all classified salaries are aligned with experience and are competitive in the marketplace.

Based on this review, it will be determined which employees will receive an adjustment. It is our desire that this review will restore parity to our salary structure.

Our goal is to ensure that we:
• Commit to being Financially responsible relative to the District’s budget
• Contine to be transparent and equitable in the process
• Remain competitive in the market place thereby attracting highly qualified candidates

Once the adjustments are identified, Human Capital Management will notify employees who are to receive an adjustment by June 2019. Salary revisions will be retroactive to the first working day of January 2019.

Thank you for your continued service and commitment in meeting the District’s goals. We look forward to providing essential communication and support to you during this process.

Procurement Assessment Indicates Fraud at DeKalb Schools

DeKalb Schools recently completed a cursory assessment of its procurement process. It indicated that ethics and integrity in the procurement process is practically non existent. For over two months, the school district withheld this report from the public. Finally, the district made a course correction and released the report. Here’s the link so you can read it for yourself.

  Procurement Assessment Report FINAL

Call To Action

Based on this initial review of the district’s procurement processes (or lack thereof), I’m calling for the creation of the following positions:
* Independent ethics officer
* Independent internal auditor

I am also calling for a review of all current contracts and an in-depth fraud investigation by an outside expert.


Richard Belcher with WSB has been looking into DeKalb School’s procurement for months. He posted DeKalb Schools employees accept travel, meals from companies on Monday where he enlisted the aid of a previous federal agent and fraud examiner to assess DeKalb Schools’ procurement assessment.

The federal agent is positive there is fraud at DeKalb Schools citing the procurement assessment that revealed vendors are paying school employees. The procurement assessment says, “it is widely known that certain types of vendors host conferences and fairs, and often will pay for District employees to attend those conferences or pay staff to be involved in those conferences and trade events.”

The federal agent recommended the following questions be asked of vendors currently doing business with the district:
Does the company do any work with school employees?
Does the company do a vast majority of its work with DeKalb alone?
He also recommended to spot check various vendors and drive to the physical location of the vendor’s office.


Response From Superintendent Green
Superintendent Stephen Green

Dr. Stephen Green
Superintendent, DeKalb County School District

The DeKalb County Board of Education had requested Nelson Mullins conduct a high level assessment of the District’s procurement processes. This was the first step in a continuous process that evaluates how the district can become more effective and efficient in its practices. The report is not the end, but the beginning. The report gives the district the opportunity to do an introspective view of its board policies, protocols and procedures, before major problems arise. Now that the report is complete, we are in the beginning stages of developing an action plan that will strengthen our current procurement processes. The administration will provide the Board of Education with periodic updates on the progress of improvement of our procurement practice.