04/01/2014 – Kirk Lunde

04/01/2014 Work Session & Board Meeting
04/01/2014 Public Comments

Public Comments – Kirk Lunde

My name is Kirk Lunde.  I live in Tucker and I am here to represent myself as a taxpayer and parent.  Thank you for allowing me to speak.  I want to speak about why there is a lack of trust in the school district and why you need to change the culture of the administration.

It is sad that a year after you guys came together as a group promising to address the issues of transparency, honesty and trust, that outside of this building so very little change is evident.  In all fairness the issues lie with the Superintendent and the district employees, but you are responsible for holding the Superintendent accountable.  So, the buck stops with the Board of Education.

Communications

PDS 24 no longer replays board of education meetings.  Video archiving of board of education meetings is no longer done and recent meetings are no longer available on the district website.

Where is the strategic communications plan promised in Superintendent Thurmond’s 90 day plan, a plan that is no longer posted on the website.

Transparency

The former head of the Human Resources Division is currently an elementary school principal. He was moved to the schoolhouse in FY 2013.  Yet, the current FY 2014 budget shows his salary has nearly $50K over the maximum for an elementary school principal.

So I called him, at Jim’s recommendation, and I asked.  He said, “I don’t know how budgets are put together”, which is a ridiculous thing for the former head of HR to say.  He suggested I call the finance department, so I did.  The finance department suggested that I call HR because salaries come from HR.  So, I called the HR department and HR suggested that I call finance.  Do you see why there might be a transparency issue?

Responsiveness

The SPLOST IV citizens oversight committee made 22 recommendations to the district administration before July 1st of last year which were not completed as of December 31st during their annual report.  22 recommendations to the administration that were not followed up on.

On February 28th, I emailed 6 questions and have not received a response.  Last Thursday I sent more questions with no response.  I included those questions in the email I sent each of you today, but probably too late for you to have read.

I propose using the balanced scorecard as a tool and not just posting it on the website with N/A in all of the categories.